America is reported to be officially out of the recession of
2008; yet Americans are contending with the steepest
unemployment rates since the 1960s. A Rockefeller Foundation
study estimated that in 2009, 20 percent of households lost 25
percent or more of their income. Confidence in the economy is
low and fears of a double-dip recession or worse are high. With
vulnerable populations facing such challenging circumstances, we
need to think about the forces today that will shape the future
of vulnerability tomorrow. What will vulnerability in America
look like in 2030? How will key economic, policy, social,
environmental and other factors evolve over the next two
decades? Can we envision the different ways in which the future
might unfold, and the kind of actions we might take today that
could most effectively improve the health and well being of
vulnerable people across a variety of different future
conditions? To explore these questions, we worked with the
Institute for Alternative Futures on a scenario plann