Heather Boushey
Chief Economist
Expertise: Budget and fiscal policy, demographics and census, economics, employment, labor, poverty, welfare, women and work
Heather Boushey is Chief Economist at American Progress, where her research focuses on U.S. employment, social policy, and family economic well-being. She is also currently a visiting fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research in London. She co-edited The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything (Simon & Schuster ebook, 2009) and was a lead author of “Bridging the Gaps,” a 10-state study about how low- and moderate-income working families are left out of work support programs. Her research has been published in academic journals and has been covered widely in the media, including regular appearances on the PBS Newshour and in The New York Times, where she was called one of the “most vibrant voices in the field.” She also spearheaded a successful campaign to save the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation from devastating budget cuts.
Boushey received her Ph.D. in economics from the New School for Social Research and her B.A. from Hampshire College. She has held an economist position with the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and the Economic Policy Institute, where she was a co-author of their flagship publication, The State of Working America 2002/3. She grew up in a union family in Mukilteo, Washington, and now lives with her husband, Todd Tucker, in Washington, D.C.