When Bill Clinton commented, “It’s the economy, stupid,” he was doing more than pointing out the nation’s economic woes. He was presenting a philosophy of public policy: Crafting public policy requires much more than a commitment to a particular principle – It requires understanding the reality that people live every day. We need to tailor solutions that fit contemporary conditions. In The Great Risk Shift, Jacob applies this philosophy with great success to (among other things) the risks workers face.

In the last thirty years, the nature of society and work has gone through an incredible transformation. As Jacob notes:

Global trade has increased, exposing once-sheltered jobs to international economic pressure. Cross-border financial flows have exploded, encouraging companies to shift their operations—and jobs—from nation to nation to maximize return. … Manufacturing, with its mass of stable, blue-collar jobs, has been in steep decline, while an increasing share of employment is in knowledge and service industries marked by large differentials in pay and benefits and, often, limited job security.

Grappling with these new conditions is a must for crafting policy. As FDR once put it, the question is “whether individual men and women will have to serve some system of government of economics, or whether a system of government and economics exists to serve individual men and women.”

Jacob puts forward a number of ideas that use government and economics to address the challenges we face today. I won’t recount all of them here, but two of the best are expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act to the 45% of workers for whom it does not apply and creating a “Right to Request” law under which parents can petition employers to have their work schedule adjusted. Ideas like these would go far to help working parents continue working without neglecting their families. They are policies that engage the difficult realities so many families face.