Former Roosevelt Institute Macroeconomist Named to National Economic Council

Washington, DC — Today, the White House National Economic Council announced that the Roosevelt Institute’s former director of macroeconomic analysis, Mike Konczal, will be appointed special assistant to the president for economic policy in the National Economic Council. Please find below statements from Felicia Wong, president and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, and Roosevelt’s chief economist, Joseph Stiglitz, about Konczal’s appointment.  

“Mike Konczal is one of the earliest and most influential Roosevelt Institute staffers, spearheading our macroeconomic work and authoring some of our most important publications, including our 2015 report Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy and our 2023 Sea Change: How a New Economics Went Mainstream,” said Roosevelt Institute President and CEO Felicia Wong. “Mike started working at the Roosevelt Institute in the wake of the Great Recession. His early work fighting austerity has informed the policies and politics that led to many of the progressive macroeconomic victories of the last four years. The unprecedented economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic was driven by policies with Mike’s fingerprints all over them. As he moves on to serve as special assistant to the president for economic policy in the National Economic Council, he will be an exemplar of the Rooseveltian understanding that personnel is policy.”

As a director at the Roosevelt Institute, Mike focused on key economic issues such as achieving full employment and understanding inequality and the interplay of public power in markets. During his tenure, Mike produced a range of impactful work, from policy briefs on financial reform to original economic research on labor market dynamism. He was also a sought-after media commentator on the US economy and was key in helping the general public understand complex policy ideas. 

“Over the years, the Roosevelt Institute has played a key role in helping us understand how market economies actually work, the role of power, and how rewriting the rules of the economy can help create a better economy—one that improves the lives of everyone. Mike Konczal has been at the center of these efforts,” said Joseph Stiglitz, chief economist for the Roosevelt Institute.

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