About Jeff

JEFF MADRICK is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and a former economics columnist for The New York Times.  He is director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Rediscovering Government Initiative at the Century Foundation, where he is a Senior Fellow; editor of Challenge Magazine; and visiting professor of humanities at The Cooper Union.

His upcoming book, Invisible Americans, will be published by Alfred A. Knopf in January, 2020. His previous books, Seven Bad Ideas (2014) and the best-selling Age of Greed, were published by Knopf in  2011. His 2009 book, The Case for Big Government (Princeton), received a 2009 PEN Galbraith Non-Fiction Award.

He is also the author of Taking America (Bantam, 1987), and The End of Affluence (Random House, 1995), both of which were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Taking America was chosen by Business Week as one of the ten best books of the year. His book, Why Economies Grow (Basic Books/Century Foundation, 2002), emphasized the need for active public investment and a broader understanding of the causes of growth than was popular in academia at the time.

He has written for many other publications over the years,  including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Institutional Investor, The Nation, American Prospect, The Boston Globe, Newsday, and the business, op-ed, and the Sunday magazine sections of The New York Times.

Madrick gives many speeches and makes frequent public appearances. He has appeared on Charlie Rose, The Lehrer News Hour, Now With Bill Moyers, Frontline, C-Span, Book Notes, CNN, CNBC, CBS, BBC, and NPR.  He has also served as a policy consultant and speech writer for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and other U.S. legislators.

Madrick is a fellow of the World Policy Institute and is a member of the board of The Center for Economic and Policy Research.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, Madrick had several positions in journalism, including serving as  Wall Street editor of Money Magazine, finance editor of Business Week Magazine and an NBC News reporter and commentator. His awards included an Emmy and a Page One Award.


Madrick was educated at New York University and Harvard University, and was a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard.

He is married to Kim Baker and lives in New York City.

What Readers Are Saying about Invisible Americans

Armed with extensive research that cuts through popular myths about child poverty, Madrick roots his provocative arguments in searing facts that should make every American ashamed—and determined to act on his sensible solutions.
David Shipler
David Shipler
Pulitzer prize winner and best-selling author, Jew and Arab, and The Working Poor
With a walk through the history and research on child poverty in the United States, Madrick systematically builds the case for why we need to move expeditiously to a universal monthly child allowance for children and in so doing, dramatically reduce child poverty. Madrick offers both a comprehensive view of the history of child poverty in our nation and a glimpse of where we may be headed.
David Harris
David Harris
President, Children’s Research and Education Institute, Columbia University
Masterfully weaving together stories and statistics, Jeffrey Madrick shines a light on the deepness and vastness of child poverty in America, and offers us a surprisingly simple way to address it.
H. Luke Shaefer
H. Luke Shaefer
co-author of $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America
Child poverty is one of the many areas of social welfare where the United States badly lags other wealthy countries. Madrick gives an excellent account of the contours and consequences of child poverty in the United States, as well as the failed social policies of the last three decades that have done little to address this problem. He also makes a powerful argument for the simplest possible solution, giving poor families money.
Dean Baker
Dean Baker
author, Rigged
In Invisible Americans, Jeff Madrick shines invaluable light on a much-neglected crisis: the more than one in five children -- some 13 million children -- who live in poverty in the world’s wealthiest nation. Madrick explains how this crisis has stunted millions of children and shows how the United States has fallen woefully short of its promise of equal opportunity. Madrick makes devastatingly clear that America’s child poverty problem is a moral disgrace. Concise, compelling, and urgent, Invisible Americans concludes with some smart ideas on how to quickly reduce child poverty.
Steven Greenhouse
Steven Greenhouse
author of Beaten Down, Worked Up

Invisible Americans

On sale everywhere January 28, 2020

visaamericanexpressmastercard