John is a senior research fellow at CEPR, where he was a senior economist between 2005 and 2015. He later worked as the Research Director at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and the Vice President of the Economic Policy Institute.
He has published peer-reviewed research on a range of labor market issues including unemployment, wage inequality, the minimum wage, unionization, immigration, technology, racial inequality, mass incarceration, and other topics. His research has been cited widely in the media including The Economist, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
His popular writing has appeared in The American Prospect, Boston Review, BusinessWeek.com, Challenge, Democracy, Dissent, The Guardian, The International Herald Tribune, Salon, The Washington Post, and other publications. Schmitt co-authored three editions of The State of Working America and co-edited Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World (Russell Sage Foundation, 2010).
From 1999 through 2015, he was a regular visiting professor in public policy at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. In the 1990s, he was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador, and later worked as an information officer for the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL).
He has a Ph.D. and an M.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics and an A.B. in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University.
All from John Schmitt
Women, Working Families, and Unions
June 2014, Janelle Jones, John Schmitt, and Nicole Woo
Update on Low-wage Workers
Why Don’t More People Go To College?
At the Upshot today, David Leonhardt asks if college is “worth it” and answers with a resounding “clearly,” citing data he obtained from the Economic Policy Institute. Leonhardt’s answer, however, raises a bigger question, which he leaves unexamined: if c
A College Degree is No Guarantee: Labor-Market Outcomes for Black Recent College Grads
A College Degree is No Guarantee
May 2014, Janelle Jones and John Schmitt
Scrapping the Social Security Payroll Tax Cap
Nicole WooThe Hill, May 8, 2014
Piketty and Policy
Early on in his (rightly) highly complimentary review of Thomas Piketty’sCapital in the 21st Century, Paul Krugman declares: “This is a book that will change both the way we think about society and the way we do economics.” Krugman is certainly correct ab
The Economic Importance of Women’s Rising Hours of Work: Time to Update Employment Standards
April 2014, Eileen Appelbaum, Heather Boushey, and John Schmitt
Regulation of Public Sector Collective Bargaining in the States
March 2014, Milla Sanes and John Schmitt
Will Obamacare Boost Wages?
Opponents of Obamacare are still muttering about how the bill is a jobs killer and claiming the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned that it will lead to a loss of more than two million jobs. Of course the CBO analysis did not say the Affordable Care