Meet
Scott
Scott Fulford is an expert economist who studies how people use credit and other financial products to make ends meet. He is the author of The Pandemic Paradox: How the COVID Crisis Made Americans More Financially Secure.
Scott Fulford is a senior economist at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau where he led the development of the Making Ends Meet Survey.
His wide ranging research examines the economic shocks people face and how they deal with them, how economies grow and develop in the long term, and the effects of migration in India and the United States. His academic work has appeared in the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Development Economics, and the Journal of Monetary Economics among others journals.
His work has been featured in the The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The Boston Globe, The New Republic and other news organizations.
His expertise is regularly sought inside and outside government. He has represented the U.S. at the OECD, and he regularly speaks at the Federal Reserve Board, Federal Reserve banks, the OCC, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the FDIC, the NBER, and universities.
Before coming to the CFPB, he was an assistant professor of economics and international studies at Boston College. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2009.
Scott lives in Washington, DC with his wife and two young kids. Scott's experience as a father during the pandemic deeply informs his work. As he writes in the The Pandemic Paradox:
"Like many parents, I spent the pandemic balancing work and being a parent, getting up early and staying up late so I could help take care of my two young kids, whose school and daycare had closed. Trying to be a teacher, economist, and dad at the same time. My wife and I sewed (bad and uncomfortable) cloth masks in early April 2020 and baked (delicious) bread in June when we could not buy sandwich bread. I cut my own hair for more than a year. Because I wasn’t commuting, I spent a lot more time with my kids. While we have each had our own journey through pandemic, from wondering what was safe, to unemployment, to loneliness, to shortages, to juggling work and child care, we all shared the experience of living through the defining event of our time. I hope this book helps give you perspective on your own experiences and helps you understand others’ experiences."
Scott's kids "helping" him work on a draft of his book.