Harry J. Holzer

Dr. Harry J. Holzer is the John LaFarge Jr. SJ Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings, and an Institute Fellow at the American Institute for Research in Washington DC. He serves as economic advisor to ERP in the design of educational and economic productivity modeling.

Dr. Holzer is a former Chief Economist for the U.S. Department of Labor and a former Professor of Economics at Michigan State University. He was a founding faculty director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality. He is also an affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and of the Stanford Institute on Poverty and Inequality. Dr. Holzer has authored or edited 12 books and several dozen journal articles, mostly on disadvantaged American workers and their employers, as well as on education and workforce issues and labor market policy. His work has contributed to state and federal policies in a number of policy areas. For instance, his research on the difficulties faced by ex-offenders in the job market contributed to policies which ultimately resulted in the First Step Act of 2018; he advised the Obama administration on the inclusion of employment and training initiatives in the American Recovery and Reconstruction Act (ARRA, or the stimulus bill) of 2009 and on the vice president’s “job-driven training” initiative in 2014; and his research on minority employment difficulties and Affirmative Action has been cited in Supreme Court opinions on Affirmative Action.

Dr. Holzer received his B.A. from Harvard in 1978 (graduating Summa Cum Laude) and his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard in 1983.