While I’ve been in the household financial security field for two decades now, I started out planning for a career in economic policy. I majored in economics, and earned a master’s degree in economic policy, because I believe that how we design our economy is critical to whether or not all people and communities in America can earn and accumulate enough money to be safe, secure, and free.
After observing federal and state-level economic policymaking up close, however, it didn’t seem to me to be strategically focused on helping the people who make up most of the U.S.—workers, families, small business owners—achieve economic success and prosperity. So I gravitated instead to fields such as asset building, community development, and consumer financial well-being that more tightly focused on boosting ordinary people’s financial security.
But in the 20 years I’ve been working to strengthen household finances, the macro conditions that would allow people to get ahead through work, saving, and building wealth have continued to deteriorate. Except for a few years of unprecedented policy and market conditions during the pandemic which showed what a different approach to economic policy can achieve, inflation-adjusted incomes have largely stagnated for the bottom 60% of households, while the costs of core expenses—like housing, child care, health care and education—have soared.
This mismatch between earnings and cost of living has in turn diminished households’ ability to earn a living wage from work; afford basic needs; spend time with family and friends; save, plan, and invest for the future; build wealth over a lifetime; and enjoy retirement.
Here’s the bottom line: When the fundamentals of a good life are out of reach for the majority of Americans because of the economic environment surrounding them, no amount of innovation at the household level will result in widespread prosperity and well-being.
This stark reality signals to me that it’s time for the financial security and economic policy fields to work together to ask some foundational, values-based questions about the U.S. economy and our approach to supporting and shaping it:
- What if we designed our national economic strategy to center the ability of all households to achieve financial well-being through work and wealth building?
- How would having widespread financial security as the goal inform the approach to—and measurement of—this new economic strategy? For example, would it require us to include a wider set of policy areas—from labor, regulatory, fiscal, monetary and industrial policy to housing, education, care, social insurance, and more—in our understanding of “economic policy?” And would we need new job quality, cost of living, and household-level metrics to track the health of our economy?
- What would it take for our labor market and educational institutions to provide work that pays enough to thrive and get ahead, and the ability to get trained for well-paying work without assuming burdensome debt, while serving the needs of employers and local economies for skilled workers?
- How can we ensure that core aspects of life (like housing, education, child care, health care, food, and transportation) are affordable, and support people’s ability to work and earn?
- And finally, how can our country systematically provide on-ramps to asset ownership (including real estate and financial assets) and deliver a stake in the upside of the economy to more people?
For 10 years, Aspen FSP has illuminated critical financial challenges facing U.S. households and supported leaders in taking action to solve them. We have made great progress. But we will never come up with all the solutions—or create the economic conditions for household thriving—on our own. That’s why we need economic policy thinkers and decision-makers in this work with us, to share their perspectives and wisdom, co-create and converge on solutions, and collaborate to drive impact.
And, I would argue, we have something to offer them as well. After an election season that highlighted Americans’ widespread frustration with the existing economic policies and environment that have profoundly failed to deliver the conditions that help them lead financially stable, dignified, safe, and fulfilling lives, the lens and design principles that our field has spent decades honing will be necessary for the economic strategy of the future.
That’s why I’m so thrilled about the launch, this year, of the inaugural Aspen Ideas: Economy. This and other forums are opportunities for economic policy thinkers and decision-makers to partner with us and all the diverse sectors and leaders focused on household financial security to design an economy where every person in the U.S. can achieve financial well-being through work and wealth building.
This effort will certainly advance Aspen FSP’s goal of widespread financial security. But it’s also critical, urgent, and potentially existential for the success of America in our lifetimes. So we want to hear from you: What’s an economy for? How might we design it to drive widespread household financial security and well-being? And what could get us there?
