-Prof Hacker states in part:

"Testimony Before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

United States Senate

Washington, D.C.

January 16, 2007
 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Jacob Hacker, and I am a professor of political science at Yale University. I thank the committee for the honor of speaking today about the economic condition of the American middle class.Without mincing words, that condition can be described as “serious and unstable.” Increasingly, middle-class Americans find themselves on a shaky financial tightrope, without an adequate safety net if they lose their footing.

A major cause of this precariousness is what I call “The Great Risk Shift.”

Over the last generation, we have witnessed a massive transfer of economic risk from broad structures of insurance, whether sponsored by the corporate sector or by government, onto the fragile balance sheets of American families. This transformation is arguably thedefining feature of the contemporary American economy—as important as the shift fromagriculture to industry more than a century ago. It has reshaped Americans’ relationshipsto their government, their employers, and each other. And it has transformed the economic circumstances of American families, from the bottom of the economic ladder to its highest rungs......

For full hearing info, go to: http://help.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=0d91e368-bc2f-14ac-37f1-5bafe36d492b ; to read Professor Hacker's full testimony go to/click:    http://help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Hacker.pdf