Robert Reich | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Official portrait, 1993 | ||||||||||
| 22ndUnited States Secretary of Labor | ||||||||||
| In office January 20, 1993 – January 20, 1997 | ||||||||||
| President | Bill Clinton | |||||||||
| Preceded by | Lynn Morley Martin | |||||||||
| Succeeded by | Alexis Herman | |||||||||
| Personal details | ||||||||||
| Born | Robert Bernard Reich (1946-06-24)June 24, 1946 (age 78) Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S. | |||||||||
| Political party | Democratic | |||||||||
| Spouse(s) | Perian Flaherty | |||||||||
| Children | 2, includingSam | |||||||||
| Education | Dartmouth College (BA) University College, Oxford (MA) Yale University (JD) | |||||||||
| Awards | The VIZE 97 Prize (2003) | |||||||||
| Website | Official website | |||||||||
YouTube information | ||||||||||
| Channel | ||||||||||
| Years active | 2015–2025 | |||||||||
| Subscribers | 1.12 million[1] | |||||||||
| Views | 134.6 million[1] | |||||||||
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Last updated: February 2025 | ||||||||||
Robert Reich discussing his support of theNational Popular Vote Interstate Compact | ||||||||||
Robert Bernard Reich (/ˈraɪʃ/;[2] born June 24, 1946) is an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator.[3] He worked in the administrations of presidentsGerald Ford andJimmy Carter,[4] and served asSecretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997 in thecabinet of PresidentBill Clinton.[5][6] He was also a member of PresidentBarack Obama's economic transition advisory board.[7]
Reich has been the Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at theGoldman School of Public Policy atUC Berkeley since January 2006.[8] He was formerly a lecturer atHarvard University'sJohn F. Kennedy School of Government[9] and a professor of social and economic policy at theHeller School for Social Policy and Management ofBrandeis University. In 2008,Time magazine named him one of the Ten Best Cabinet Members of the century,[10] and in the same yearThe Wall Street Journal placed him sixth on its list of Most Influential Business Thinkers.[11]
Reich has published numerous books,[12] including the best-sellersThe Work of Nations (1991),Reason (2004),Supercapitalism (2007),Aftershock (2010),Beyond Outrage (2012), andSaving Capitalism (2015). The Robert Reich–Jacob Kornbluth filmSaving Capitalism debuted on Netflix in November 2017, and their filmInequality for All won a U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Achievement in Filmmaking at the2013 Sundance Film Festival.[13][14] He is board chair emeritus ofCommon Cause and blogs at Robertreich.org.[15]
Reich was born to a Jewish family inScranton, Pennsylvania, the son of Mildred Freshman (née Dorf) (1919–2006) and Edwin Saul Reich (1914–2016), who owned a women's clothing store.[16] As a teenager, he was diagnosed withmultiple epiphyseal dysplasia, also known as Fairbank's disease, a genetic disorder that results in short stature and other symptoms. This condition made Reich a target for bullies and he sought out the protection of older boys; one of them wasMichael Schwerner, who was one of the three civil rights workersmurdered in Mississippi by theKu Klux Klan in 1964 for the registration of African-American voters. Reich cites this event as an inspiration to "fight the bullies, to protect the powerless, to make sure that the people without a voice have a voice".[17]
Reich attendedJohn Jay High School inCross River, New York, where he received aNational Merit Scholarship. He graduated fromDartmouth College in 1968 with abachelor's degree in history,summa cum laude.[18] While at Dartmouth, Reich went on a date withHillary Rodham (later Clinton), then an undergraduate atWellesley College.[19] He won aRhodes Scholarship to studyPhilosophy, Politics, and Economics atUniversity College, Oxford.[18] While studying at Oxford, Reich first metBill Clinton, also a Rhodes Scholar. Although Reich was drafted to serve in theVietnam War, he did not pass the physical examination; due to his dysplasia condition, Reich is only 4 feet 11 inches (1.50 m) tall, shorter than the required minimum height of 5 ft 0 in (1.52 m).[20] Reich subsequently earned aJ.D. fromYale Law School, where he was an editor of theYale Law Journal. At Yale, he was a classmate of Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham,Clarence Thomas,Michael Medved, andRichard Blumenthal.[21]
From 1973 to 1974, Reich served as a law clerk to JudgeFrank M. Coffin, chief judge of theU.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. From 1974 to 1976, he was an assistant toU.S. Solicitor GeneralRobert Bork, under whom he had studiedantitrust law while at Yale.[22] In 1977, PresidentJimmy Carter appointed him director of the Policy Planning Staff at theFederal Trade Commission. From 1980 until 1992, Reich taught at theJohn F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he wrote a series of books and articles, includingThe Next American Frontier andThe Work of Nations.
Bill Clinton incorporated Reich's thinking into his 1992 campaign platform, and after Clinton won the election, he appointed Reich to head economic policy for thepresidential transition.[23]
Reich joined the administration asSecretary of Labor. On January 21, his nomination wasconfirmed unanimously and without controversy, along with a slate of Clinton appointees.[24]
In the very early days of the administration, Reich was seen as one of the most powerful members of the Clinton cabinet, both for his friendship with the President and his ambitious agenda for the Department of Labor. Reich envisioned Labor as the nucleus of a cluster of agencies, including the departments of Commerce and Education, which could act in tandem to break down traditional bureaucratic barriers.[25] Consistent with the 1992 Clinton platform and his writings before taking office, Reich called for more federal spending on jobs training and infrastructure.[25]
Reich also took initiative to expand his flexible power as an economic advisor-at-large to the President. As a member of theNational Economic Council, Reich advised Clinton on health care reform, education policy, welfare reform, national service initiatives, and technology policy, as well as deficit reduction and spending priorities. He also actively engaged independent government agencies, such as theFederal Communications Commission, to take a labor-focused approach to regulation.[25] He referred to himself as "secretary of the American work force" and "the central banker of the nation's greatest resource".[25]
However, he butted heads with deficit hawks on the administration's economic team,[26] including budget directorLeon Panetta[25] and Federal Reserve chairAlan Greenspan, a holdover from the Reagan administration whom Clinton reappointed.[27] Reducing the deficit was the administration's top economic priority, placing Reich's economic agenda on hold.[26] He later creditedHillary Clinton with keeping him apprised of goings-on within the White House.[27]
During his tenure, he implemented theFamily and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and successfully lobbied to increase the nationalminimum wage.[28]
Throughout his first year in office, Reich was a leading proponent of theNorth American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was negotiated by theGeorge H. W. Bush administration and supported by Clinton following two side agreements negotiated to satisfy labor and environmental groups. Reich served as leading public and private spokesman for the Clinton administration against organized labor, who continued to oppose the Agreement as a whole.
In July 1993, Reich said that the unions were "just plain wrong" to suggest NAFTA would cause a loss of American employment and predicted that "given the pace of growth of the Mexican automobile market over the next 15 years, I would say that more automobile jobs would be created in the United States than would be lost to Mexico... [T]he American automobile industry will grow substantially, and the net effect will be an increase in automobile jobs." He further argued that trade liberalization following World War II had led to the "biggest increase in jobs and standard of living among the industrialized nations [in] history."[29]
In a September 1993 to theCenter for National Policy think tank, Reich said, "Great change demands great flexibility -- the capacity to adapt quickly and continuously, to change jobs, change directions, gain new skills. But the sad irony is that massive change on the scale we are now facing may be inviting the opposite reaction: a politics of preservation, grounded in fear." Reich specifically said opposition to NAFTA "has little to do with the agreement and much to do with the pervasive anxieties arising from economic changes that are already affecting Americans."[30] In October, Reich addressed the biannualAFL-CIO convention in San Francisco, whereEconomic Policy Institute economist Thea Lea mocked Reich's view as a "field-of-dreams" theory of job creation.[31] His remarks were generally well-received, though only briefly mentioning NAFTA; he focused on the Clinton administration's approach to theNational Labor Relations Board and day-to-day business regulation and management-labor relations.[32]
In advance of the final vote, Reich personally lobbied members of Congress to support the Agreement.[33][34] The bill passed the House 234–200 on November 17 and the Senate 61–38 on November 20; President Clinton signed it in to law on December 8.
Over twenty years later, in opposing theTrans-Pacific Partnership as "NAFTA on steroids", Reich repudiated his position. He further admitted that he regretted "not doing more to strengthen [NAFTA]'s labor and environmental side-agreements", though he denied supporting an expedited "fast-track" legislative process without opportunity for amendment.[35]
By August 1994, Reich had largely been sidelined on policy by the deficit hawks in the administration. With the approval of the White House, he delivered the first of four major speeches on the emergence of a new "anxious class" of Americans concerned with increasedglobal competition and technological change.[26]
After a disastrous showing for the Democratic Party in theNovember 1994 midterm elections, Reich returned to the forefront of the Clinton economic team.[26] Clinton reframed his agenda around a set of Reich proposals: middle-class tax cuts, a boost in the minimum wage, tax deductions for college tuition, federal grants to help workers upgrade their skills, and a ban onstrike replacements.[26]
In a speech to theDemocratic Leadership Council shortly after the election, Reich called for cutting corporate subsidies, which he labeled "corporate welfare", as the only possible means to afford jobs training programs. In a concession to the new Republican congress, Reich said that many federal job training programs did not work and that there was a need to consolidate programs that work and eliminate those that did not.[36][26] After the speech, Treasury SecretaryLloyd Bentsen and Commerce SecretaryRon Brown attempted to distance the administration from Reich's corporate welfare comments. However, Bentsen soon resigned; Reich continued to attack corporate welfare.[26]
In February 1995, Reich met opposition within the administration over his proposal to ban government contractors from permanently replacing striking workers. Clinton sided with Reich, re-establishing his central role in the administration's economic policy.[26]
Reich gave weekly speeches attacking the new Republican majority, with his central message being the need to adapt to an"information-based" economy and the continued need for job re-training. He said, "We can't get the mass production economy back. The challenge now is of a different kind, and many have found it difficult to adapt. This is a major social transformation." On a Chicago call-in radio show, he said, "You are on a downward escalator. You have a lot of job insecurity because of the tidal wave of corporate downsizing and restructuring."[26]
In December 1995, Reich delivered a commencement speech at theUniversity of Maryland, College Park, in which he decried the increasing tendency of wealthy, educated Americans to divide themselves from the general population as "the secession of the successful America".[37]
In 1996, between Clinton's re-election and second inauguration, Reich decided to leave the department to spend more time with his sons, then in their teen years.
By April 1997, he published his experiences working for the Clinton administration inLocked in the Cabinet. Among those he criticized in the tell-all were Clinton advisorDick Morris, former AFL-CIO headLane Kirkland, and Federal Reserve Board chairmanAlan Greenspan, a leading deficit hawk whom he considered "the most powerful man in the world".[27] In the book, Reich criticizes the Democratic Party as "owned by" business and Washington as having two real political parties during his tenure: the "Save the Jobs" party, which wanted to maintain the status quo, and the "Let 'Em Drown" party.[27]
After publication of the book, Reich received criticism for embellishing events with invented dialogue which did not matchC-SPAN tapes or official transcripts of meetings.[38] The paperback release of the memoir revised or omitted the inventions. In one story, members of theNational Association of Manufacturers (NAM) confronted Reich with curses and shouts of "Go back to Harvard!" In the revised version of the NAM story, Reich is instead hissed at. The foreword to the paperback contained an explanation, in which Reich says that "memory is fallible".[38]
The memoir has since been called "a classic of the pissed-off-secretary genre" byGlenn Thrush.[39]
Reich became a professor atBrandeis University, teaching courses for undergraduates as well as in theHeller School for Social Policy and Management. In 2003, he was elected the Professor of the Year by the undergraduate student body.[40]
On January 1, 2006, Reich joined the faculty of UC Berkeley'sGoldman School of Public Policy. Since then, he has taught a popular undergraduate course called Wealth and Poverty, in addition to his graduate courses.[41] Reich is also a member of the board of trustees for the Blum Center for Developing Economies at theUniversity of California, Berkeley.[42] The center is focused on finding solutions to address the crisis of extreme poverty and disease in the developing world.[43] In February 2017, Reich criticized UC Berkeley's decision to host Donald Trump supporterMilo Yiannopoulos. Followingprotests on the Berkeley Campus Reich stated that although he didn't "want to add to the conspiratorial musings"[44] he wouldn't rule out the possibility the "agitators" were a right-wingfalse flag for Trump to strip universities of federal funding.[45]
In 2002, he ran forGovernor of Massachusetts, losing in theDemocratic primary toShannon O'Brien. He also published an associated campaign book,I'll Be Short. Reich was the first US gubernatorial candidate to supportsame-sex marriage.[46] He also pledged support forabortion rights and stronglycondemned capital punishment. His campaign staff was largely made up of his Brandeis students. Although his campaign had little funding, he narrowly came in second out of six candidates in the Democratic primary with 25% of the vote;[47] O'Brien went on to lose the general election to Republican future two-time presidential candidate and U.S. SenatorMitt Romney.[48]
In early 2005, there was speculation that Reich would once again seek the Democratic nomination for Governor of Massachusetts. He instead endorsed the then-little-known candidacy ofDeval Patrick, who had previously served asAssistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Clinton Administration. Patrick won the party's endorsement, a three-way primary with nearly 50% of the vote, and the general election in November 2006.
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In 2004, Reich publishedReason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America.
In addition to his professorial role, he was a weekly contributor to theAmerican Public Mediapublic radio programMarketplace, and a regular columnist forThe American Prospect, which he co-founded in 1990.[49] He has also frequently contributed toCNBC'sKudlow & Company andOn the Money.
In 2010, his weekly column was syndicated byTribune Content Agency.[50] Since at least the summer of 2016, Reich has contributed an opinion column toNewsweek.[51][52]
In 2013, he teamed up with filmmakerJacob Kornbluth to produce the documentaryInequality for All, based on his bookAftershock which won a Special Jury Award at theSundance Film Festival. In 2017, he again teamed up with Jacob Kornbluth to produce the documentarySaving Capitalism, based on his book of that name.Netflix chose the film to be a Netflix Original Documentary. In the documentary, Reich posits that large corporations began in the late 1960s to use financial power to purchase influence among the political class and consolidate political power, highlighting in particular the influence of the 2010Citizens United ruling that allowed corporations to contribute to election campaigns. In the documentary, he advocates for grassroots political mobilization among working class Americans to countervail the political power of corporate America.[53]
In 2022, Reich was featured inThe Simpsons season finale "Poorhouse Rock", where he briefly explains theeconomic decline of the American middle class during a musical sequence.[54][55]
In an interview withThe New York Times in 2008, Reich explained that "I don't believe inredistribution of wealth for the sake of redistributing wealth. But I am concerned about how we can afford to pay for what we as a nation need to do [...] [Taxes should pay] for what we need in order to be safe and productive. AsOliver Wendell Holmes once wrote, 'taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.'"[56]
In response to a question as to what to recommend to the incoming president regarding a fair and sustainable income and wealth distribution, Reich said: "Expand theEarned Income Tax Credit—a wage supplement for lower-income people, and finance it with a higher marginal income tax on the top five percent. For the longer term, invest in education for lower income communities, starting with early-childhood education and extending all the way up to better access to post-secondary education."[56]
Reich is pro-union, saying: "Unionization is not just good for workers in unions, unionization is very, very important for the economy overall, and would create broad benefits for the United States."[57] Writing in 2014, he stated that he favors raising the federal minimum wage to $15/hr across three years, believing that it will not adversely impact big business, and will increase higher value worker availability.[58]
Reich also supports an unconditional anduniversal basic income.[59] On the eve of aJune 2016 popular vote in Switzerland on basic income, he declared that countries will have to introduce this instrument sooner or later.[60]
While affordable housing has been a central issue in Reich's activism, in July 2020 Reich opposed a high-density development project in his own neighborhood in Berkeley.[61] He supported making a 120-year-old triplex a landmark to prevent the construction of a 10-apartment building, one of which would bedeed restricted to be rented to a low income tenant, citing "the character of the neighborhood".[62] During an interview withW. Kamau Bell the following month, Reich reaffirmed his support for affordable housing "in every community I've been involved in", and critiqued the development for replacing the house with "condos selling for one and a half million dollars each".[63][64]
Although a supporter of Israel, Reich has criticized Israel'ssettlement building in the occupiedPalestinian territories.[65] More recently, Reich has spoken out against the "bloodbath" in Gaza, and declared "we must restrict U.S. arms sales to Israel."[66][better source needed]
In September 2005, Reich testified againstJohn Roberts at his confirmation hearings forChief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
On April 18, 2008, Reich endorsedBarack Obama for President of the United States.[67] During the 2008 primaries, Reich published an article that was critical of the Clintons, referring to Bill Clinton's attacks on Barack Obama as "ill-tempered and ill-founded", and accusing the Clintons of waging "a smear campaign against Obama that employs some of the worst aspects of the old politics".[68]
Reich endorsedBernie Sanders for President of the United States in 2016, and both Sanders andElizabeth Warren in 2020.[69][70][71] After Sanders ended his 2016 campaign, Reich urged Sanders's supporters to back eventual Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.[72]
On May 31, 2020, Reich declared that "by having no constructive response to any of the monumental crises now convulsing America,Trump has abdicated his office."[73] Since at least 2021, Reich has publicly supported PresidentDonald Trump's removal fromTwitter and other social media platforms.[74][75] In an April 2022 op-ed published onThe Guardian, he criticizedElon Musk'sefforts to take over Twitter, opining that the "libertarian vision of an 'uncontrolled' internet" is "dangerous rubbish".[74]
In 2022, Reich calledFlorida GovernorRon DeSantis a "fascist".[76]
In October 2023, Reich authoredThe last adult in the room. In the essay, he characterizedJoe Biden as, "shrewd, careful, and calibrated" and expressed gratitude that Biden "is in charge" at a time "when the kids are on a rampage".[77]
In 2015, with Jacob Kornbluth, Reich founded Inequality Media, which produces video content of Reich. This includes a "Resistance Report" (a 15- to 30-minute video published on social media),[78] and the weekly Youtube showThe Common Good.[79]
Reich married British-born lawyer Clare Dalton inCambridge, UK, in 1973;[80] they divorced in 2012.[81] During their marriage, the couple had two sons:Sam, CEO and owner ofDropout (previously known asCollegeHumor), and Adam, a sociology professor atColumbia University.[81][82] Reich subsequently married photographer Perian Flaherty.
Reich was born withmultiple epiphyseal dysplasia, a form ofdwarfism also known as "Fairbank's disease" and stands 4 feet 11 inches tall, an issue he publicly addressed in a July 2023 Blog post titled "Why I'm So Short".[83]
In 2020, Reich wrote letters to the City of Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission objecting to the construction of ten housing units (including one low-income unit) on a lot near Reich's home.[84][85][86][87]
In 2023, Reich appeared in a cameo role in "Dropout America 2", the first episode of the 6th season ofDropout'sBreaking News, providing a fictional account of his son Sam's life.[88]
These documentaries, and additional social media movies, have been made in collaboration withJacob Kornbluth.
Reich started out as a graduate of John Jay High School, a regional public high school in small-town Cross River, New York. Reich then earned a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College in 1968 and won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford where he received degrees in philosophy, politics and economics.
'But now, there's a big-time effort for NAFTA under way,' says a Democratic congressman who's been wooed by the White House. 'I've talked to the president _ and they get me at home, too. I've had phone calls from [Labor Secretary Robert] Reich, [Commerce Secretary Ron] Brown and others.'
The character of the neighborhood is anchored by the Payson House [...] If historic preservation means anything, it means maintaining enough of the character of an older neighborhood to remind people of its history and provide continuity with the present. Development for the sake of development makes no sense when it imposes social costs like this.
I'm a big advocate for affordable housing in every community I've been involved in. You got some developers down my street that are posing as affordable housing developers but actually what they're doing is taking down old buildings and putting up these high rises or townhouses and condos selling for one and half million dollars each and pretending they're low income[...] Those old buildings had renters who were low income, and replacing them with these townhouses selling well over a million dollars and getting subsidies? When is 1.4 million dollars affordable? [...] I am for affordable housing in Berkeley, and I've spent a huge amount of time and effort trying to push for affordable housing, and I'm pushing the Mayor for affordable housing, but I am not for developers who are pretending to be about affordable housing.
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on theFediverse| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | United States Secretary of Labor 1993–1997 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial) | ||
| Preceded byas Former US Cabinet Member | Order of precedence of the United States as Former US Cabinet Member | Succeeded byas Former US Cabinet Member |
