Heidi Shierholz

Heidi Shierholz served the Obama administration as chief economist at the Department of Labor and has been a consistent and leading voice for a worker-centered policy agenda that prioritizes economic and racial justice. She took the helm at the Economic Policy Institute after former president Thea Lee departed to work for the Biden administration. EPI is focused on fighting for and winning federal, state, and local legislative and regulatory reforms that support collective bargaining, increase worker power, improve wages, benefits, and working conditions, and reduce racial and gender inequities. A labor market economist who holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan, Shierholz was tapped in 2007 by then EPI President Larry Mishel to join EPI as a labor economist, a role she held until joining the Obama administration in 2014. Prior to joining EPI in 2007, Shierholz was an assistant professor of economics at the University of Toronto.