WASHINGTON —Veteran economist Heidi Shierholz, the Economic Policy Institute’s policy director, took over EPI’s presidency in September, the EPI board announced. She succeeds Thea Lee, who stepped down to take a top Labor Department position, running the agency’s International Labor Affairs Bureau, with the Biden administration.
Shierholz was a senior EPI economist from 2007-14 before becoming chief economist at DOL for the next three years. She then returned to her present position at EPI.
Saying she is “thrilled and honored” to become EPI’s president, Shierholz added that since its founding, “EPI has shined a light on the fact that rising inequality, wage stagnation for most workers, and a rising Black-white wage gap are not ‘natural’ phenomena, but are the result of deliberate policy choices that have shifted power from workers to the wealthy.”
“The country is ready for economic policy that serves working people,” Shierholz continued. “As president, I will strengthen EPI’s ability to wield the power of its research and expertise to win real reforms that lead to economic justice for workers, racial justice, and gender equity.”
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