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Examining why society should pool and spread the financial risk that individual families now bear.
Over the past sixty years, businesses and government have increasingly off-loaded financial risk onto US households. The toll has pushed tens of millions of people to the financial breaking point, worsened social inequity, and jeopardized US democracy. In Sharing Risk, consumer advocate and scholar Patricia A. McCoy draws on the nation’s traditions of risk sharing to argue that society should lift up families by pooling and spreading the financial risks that they now must bear alone.
Most policy discussions of financial stress on households look at the milestones of economic well-being in isolation: making ends meet, homeownership, quality health care, financing college, and a secure retirement. McCoy offers the first integrated examination of how risk sharing can enable families to realistically achieve all five goals without sacrificing one for another. She makes specific policy recommendations and shows how risk sharing, with its long and venerable history that includes Social Security and the Affordable Care Act, would provide economic well-being for all.
Over the past sixty years, businesses and government have increasingly off-loaded financial risk onto US households. The toll has pushed tens of millions of people to the financial breaking point, worsened social inequity, and jeopardized US democracy. In Sharing Risk, consumer advocate and scholar Patricia A. McCoy draws on the nation’s traditions of risk sharing to argue that society should lift up families by pooling and spreading the financial risks that they now must bear alone.
Most policy discussions of financial stress on households look at the milestones of economic well-being in isolation: making ends meet, homeownership, quality health care, financing college, and a secure retirement. McCoy offers the first integrated examination of how risk sharing can enable families to realistically achieve all five goals without sacrificing one for another. She makes specific policy recommendations and shows how risk sharing, with its long and venerable history that includes Social Security and the Affordable Care Act, would provide economic well-being for all.
Price: $27.95
Pages: 312
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Publication Date:
27 May 2025
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9780520390140
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
“When it comes to five major financial goals—making ends meet, buying a home, having quality healthcare, financing college, and paying for retirement—legislative and regulatory changes over the last half-century have shifted the burden of risk from society at large to individuals. . . . McCoy provides a useful overview and critique of current policy toward each of the goals, along with practical proposals for improving the situation. She addresses the costs of these proposals and finds that many of them will pay for themselves.”
Patricia A. McCoy, a founder of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is the Liberty Mutual Insurance Professor at Boston College Law School.
Contents
List of Figures
Preface
Part I The Bottom 50 Percent
1. The Cash-Strapped American Worker
Part II From Shifting to Sharing Risk
2. Counting the Ways: How Families Are Financially Fragile
3. Power Play: The Fifty-Year Assault on Workers' Economic Security
4. The Broken Savings Discourse
5. The Importance of Sharing Risk
Part III The Road to Economic Well-Being
6. Making Ends Meet
7. Owning a Home
8. Affording Health Care
9. Paying for College
10. A Financially Secure Retirement
11. What It Will Take
Notes
References
Index
List of Figures
Preface
Part I The Bottom 50 Percent
1. The Cash-Strapped American Worker
Part II From Shifting to Sharing Risk
2. Counting the Ways: How Families Are Financially Fragile
3. Power Play: The Fifty-Year Assault on Workers' Economic Security
4. The Broken Savings Discourse
5. The Importance of Sharing Risk
Part III The Road to Economic Well-Being
6. Making Ends Meet
7. Owning a Home
8. Affording Health Care
9. Paying for College
10. A Financially Secure Retirement
11. What It Will Take
Notes
References
Index