Robert Reich
Robert Bernard Reich (born June 24, 1946) was the 22nd United States Secretary of Labor, serving under President Bill Clinton from 1993 - 1997. Currently, Reich is University Professor and Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at Brandeis University. For the Spring of 2004, he is a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Robert Reich was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1946, and grew up in the rural community of South Salem, New York State. He was born with Fairbanks disease, which left him half-an-inch taller than a technical dwarf (4-foot-10½-inches). His father owned a retail clothing stores.
He went on to graduate from Dartmouth College in 1968, obtained an M.A. as a Rhodes Scholar at University College of Oxford University, and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1973.
For more than 20 years, he has lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife, Clare Dalton, a law professor at Northeastern University who started and runs Northeastern's Center on Domestic Violence. He also has two sons, Sam and Adam.
He has worked as a faculty member at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, director of Policy Planning Staff of the Federal Trade Commission under Carter, assistant to the Solicitor General under Ford, and former chairman of the political magazine The American Prospect, which he co-founded.
A longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton going back to their days together at Oxford, he was invited to head Clinton's economic transition team. He later joined the administration as Secretary of Labor. During his tenure, he implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act, fought sweatshops, increased the minimum wage, and launched a number of job training programs.
At the same time, he lobbied Clinton to address big issues like the increasing gap between the wealthy and the poor. He had only moderate success before the 1996 campaign begun, and Clinton fell under the sway of pollster Dick Morris, who convinced him to move right and promote policies that appealed to the suburban swing voter.
In 1997, soon after Clinton's second inauguration, he decided to leave the department to spend more time with his now-teenage sons. He published his experiences working for the Clinton administration as Locked in the Cabinet.
In 2002, he ran for Governor of Massachusetts. He also published an associated campaign book, I'll Be Short. Although his campaign had hardly any money, he came in second in the Democratic primary, with 25% of the vote.
In 2004, he published Reason, a handbook on how liberals can forcefully argue for their position in a country increasingly dominated by what he calls "radcons", or radical conservatives.
Books
- 2004: Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America
- 2002: I'll Be Short: Essentials for a Decent Working Society
- 2000: The Future of Success: Working and Living in the New Economy
- 1997: Locked in the Cabinet
- 1991: Ira Magaziner)
References
