J.W. Mason

As a senior fellow at Roosevelt since 2014, J.W. Mason has made the case for more aggressive pursuit of full employment and for a bigger public sector, challenging overly pessimistic views of the limits to economic growth and unjustified fears of public debt. More broadly, he works to broaden the conversation around public management of the economy, arguing for more ambitious goals for macroeconomic policy and a broader set of tools to achieve them. To this end, he has written about the case for more expansionary fiscal and monetary policy; a more expansive definition of full employment; the flawed economics behind arguments for bringing down government debt; the economic case for a Green New Deal; the need for a broader set of tools for monetary policy and inflation control; and the World War II mobilization as a model for economic policy today.

In addition to his work with Roosevelt, J.W. is associate professor of economics at John Jay College, City University of New York. He helped establish their master’s program, which is one of a handful of graduate programs in the country focused on the radical or heterodox tradition in economics. His scholarly work focuses on macroeconomic policy, finance, and debt; his articles have appeared in American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Metroeconomica, Rethinking Marxism, Review of Keynesian Economics, and Review of Radical Political Economics. His popular writing has appeared in The American Prospect, The Baffler, Barron’s, Boston Review, City Limits, Dissent, The International Economy, In These Times, Jacobin, New Statesman, and the New York Daily News, among other publications. Prior to joining Roosevelt, he worked for a number of years as policy director for the New York Working Families Party. His personal blog is at jwmason.org/the-slack-wire.