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Jacob S. Hacker

Jacob S. Hacker is Stanley Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University, is the author, with Paul Pierson, of Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (2010) and American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper (2016).  

Recent Articles

No Cost for Extremism

Why the GOP hasn't (yet) paid for its march to the right. 

Jacob S. Hacker | April 20, 2015

Piketty's Triumph

Three expert takes on Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist Thomas Piketty's data-driven magnum opus on inequality.

Jacob S. Hacker AND Paul Pierson AND Heather Boushey AND Branko MilanovicMar 25, 2014
Courtesy of Fondation Jean Jaurès
In the 1990s, two young French economists then affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, began the first rigorous effort to gather facts on income inequality in developed countries going back decades. In the wake of the 2007 financial crash, fundamental questions about the economy that had long been ignored again garnered attention. Piketty and Saez’s research stood ready with data showing that elites in developed countries had, in recent years, grown far wealthier relative to the general population than most economists had suspected. By the past decade, according to Piketty and Saez, inequality had returned to levels nearing those of the early 20th century. Last fall, Piketty published his magnum opus, Capital in the Twenty-First Century , in France. The book seeks to model the history, recent trends, and back-to-the-19th-century future of capitalism. The American Prospect asked experts and scholars in the field of inequality to...

Piketty’s Triumph

Three expert takes on Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist Thomas Piketty's data-driven magnum opus on inequality.

Jacob S. Hacker AND Paul Pierson AND Heather Boushey AND Branko MilanovicMar 10, 2014
Courtesy of Fondation Jean Jaurès
I n the 1990s, two young French economists then affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, began the first rigorous effort to gather facts on income inequality in developed countries going back decades. In the wake of the 2007 financial crash, fundamental questions about the economy that had long been ignored again garnered attention. Piketty and Saez’s research stood ready with data showing that elites in developed countries had, in recent years, grown far wealthier relative to the general population than most economists had suspected. By the past decade, according to Piketty and Saez, inequality had returned to levels nearing those of the early 20th century. Last fall, Piketty published his magnum opus, Capital in the Twenty-First Century , in France. The book seeks to model the history, recent trends, and back-to-the-19th-century future of capitalism. The American Prospect asked experts and scholars in the field of inequality to...

Powell's Diagnosis—And Ours

Why is the American political system so weakly responsive to the policy preferences of the majority of Americans?

Jacob S. Hacker AND Paul PiersonNov 28, 2012
This piece is part of the Prospect' s series on progressives' strategy over the next 40 years. To read the introduction, click here . T he Powell Memo is remembered today as a blueprint for business counter-mobilization. So it’s easy to forget that one of Lewis Powell’s principal goals—and, it seems, achievements—was to wake up business leaders to the nature of the challenges they faced: the hostility in some campus quarters, the strength of foes like Ralph Nader, and, above all, the weakness of corporate political organization. Before he could get business leaders to act on his prescriptions, Powell had to convince them of his diagnosis. A Powell Memo for us likewise has to get the diagnosis right. Today, progressives are having three main conversations—about organization, about messaging, and about policy. Each is crucial. But there’s an even more crucial conversation, and it’s the inverse of the one that Powell sought to start more than 40 years ago. Powell asked why business was...

Reclaiming Middle-Class America

If progressives want a winning theme that the right can't match, this is it.

Jacob S. HackerFeb 07, 2011
"Middle class" is more than an income category. It's an image of a certain kind of society--a nation in which the gains of prosperity are broadly shared and those who work hard have a good shot at upward mobility and the security of a basic safety net. Today, that image is badly tarnished. In a September 2010 ABC News/Yahoo! poll, only half of Americans agreed that "the American Dream--that if you work hard you'll get ahead--still holds true"; more than four in 10 said it no longer did. This dark mood undoubtedly reflects hard economic times, but middle-class discontent runs much deeper than the current downturn, and its roots are at least as much political as economic. To reclaim America as a middle-class nation, we need to understand what's gone wrong--and what can be done to fix it. THE ERODING FOUNDATIONS OF MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICA Like all ideals, the American dream is an aspiration, not a guarantee. Yet, for 30-odd years after World War II, the aspiration came remarkably close to...

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