Richard V. Reeves is a senior fellow in Economic Studies where he holds the John C. and Nancy D. Whitehead Chair, policy director of the Future of the Middle Class Initiative, co-director of the Center on Children and Families and editor-in-chief of the Social Mobility Memos blog at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. His research focuses on social mobility, inequality, and family change. Prior to joining Brookings, he was director of strategy to the British Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg.
Richard’s publications for Brookings include Saving Horatio Alger: Equality, Opportunity, and the American Dream (2014), Character and Opportunity (2014), The Glass Floor (2013), and The Parenting Gap (2014). He is also a contributor to The Atlantic, National Affairs, Democracy Journal, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
His previous roles include director of Demos, the London-based political think-tank; director of futures at the Work Foundation; principal policy advisor to the Minister for Welfare Reform, research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, and researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London. He is also a former European Business Speaker of the Year.
He earned a BA from Oxford University and a PhD from Warwick University. With co-author Isabel V. Sawhill, he was recipient of the “Best Policy Paper” 2014 ranking in the University of Pennsylvania’s annual Think Tank Awards.
He is the author of Dream Hoarders:How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It (2017) and John Stuart Mill – Victorian Firebrand (Atlantic Books, 2008).
Praise for Dream Hoarders:
‘Richard Reeves has long been one of the most authoritative, insightful, and sage voices on the big questions gripping modern societies. Here he tackles one of the most urgent—inequality and how to solve it—and comes up with serious answers.’ Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian
‘Reading Richard Reeves on social mobility is like going for a good walk: he is bracing, head clearing, and ultimately inspiring. With rigor and wit, his new book shows how millions of successful, hard-working Americans, often with the best of intentions, have helped build a society where birth matters more than brilliance. Impassioned, data-driven, and focused on practical solutions, Dream Hoarders is a fine cure for an age of stale, cynical politics.’ David Rennie, The Economist
