MICHAEL R. STRAIN is Director of Economic Policy Studies and Paul F. Oreffice Senior Fellow in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also Professor of Practice in the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and a columnist for Project Syndicate.

Dr. Strain is the author of The American Dream Is Not Dead, which challenges the narrative of economic despair presented by populists in both political parties and analyzes longer-term trends in economic outcomes for workers and households. Read praise for the book here.

An economist, Dr. Strain’s research and writing is in a wide range of areas, including labor markets, public finance, social policy, and macroeconomics. He has published over 50 scholarly articles in academic and policy journals. He is the editor or coeditor of four books: What Has Happened to the American Working Class since the Great Recession?, The US Labor Market: Questions and Challenges for Public Policy, Economic Freedom and Human Flourishing: Perspectives from Political Philosophy, and Preserving Links in the Pandemic: Policies to Maintain Worker-Firm Attachment in the OECD. 

Dr. Strain is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, and serves on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Political & Social Science. He is a research fellow with the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn and a research affiliate with the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Strain has served on several committees and working groups at the intersection of academic research and economic and social policy, including for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Social Insurance, of which he is a member, and the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. He was a member of the AEI-Brookings Working Group on Poverty and Opportunity, which published the report “Opportunity, Responsibility, and Security: A Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty and Restoring the American Dream” and of the National Academies committee that published the report, “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work.”

His research and writing have been cited by the White House, a federal appellate court, the Congressional Budget Office, and on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The Economist cited his work as contributing to “an intellectual revolution in macroeconomics,” and his work was featured in a cover story for The New York Times Magazine.

Dr. Strain has published over 350 essays and columns on economics, public policy, and public affairs. In addition to Project Syndicate, his articles have been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and National Review, among others.

Dr. Strain is regularly interviewed on podcasts and by broadcast news networks, including CNBC, MSNBC, and NPR. He has testified before Congress, having appeared as an expert witness before six House and Senate committees. He is a frequent public speaker. He regularly speaks at conferences before a variety of audiences.

At AEI, Dr. Strain oversees the Institute’s work in economic policy, macroeconomics, financial markets, international trade and finance, tax and budget policy, welfare economics, health care policy, and related areas. He is a member of the Institute’s executive leadership committee.

Before joining AEI, Strain worked in the Center for Economic Studies at the U.S. Census Bureau and in the macroeconomics research group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell, and lives in Washington.