David Stein is an assistant professor of history at University of California, Santa Barbara. Prior to joining the faculty at UCSB, he was a UC president’s postdoctoral fellow in the department of African American studies at UCLA, and a postdoctoral fellow at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York’s Center for Place, Culture, and Politics. Broadly, his research and teaching focus on the dynamic interplay between political economy, social movements, and public policy in modern US history.
David is currently completing his first book, Fearing Inflation, Inflating Fears: The Civil Rights Struggle for Full Employment and the Rise of the Carceral State, 1929-1986. He has written widely for academic and popular audiences on topics such as Coretta Scott King’s efforts to win a federal job guarantee, the civil rights history of the Federal Reserve’s employment mandate, and the history of price controls. With Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and others, he coauthored the February 2021 House resolution to create a federal job guarantee. He has also collaborated with Representative Pressley on opinion pieces about how the Federal Reserve can fight racial and social inequities, and the unfinished civil rights struggle for a federal job guarantee.