In a career that combined scholarship with government service, economist Rebecca M. Blank (1955–2023) focused on the interaction among the macroeconomy, social policy programs, and the behavior and well-being of low-income families. For almost 20 years, she worked to improve the measurement of poverty in the United States, and in March 2010, she announced that the Commerce Department would adopt a new Supplemental Poverty Measure that would “provide an alternative lens” to understanding how many Americans are struggling financially. Blank’s book, It Takes a Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty (1997), demonstrated how poverty has become harder to combat, argued for a mix of private and public programs to fight the pervasive and subtle factors leading to poverty, and suggested ways to balance safety-net measures with incentives to work.
Blank was also honored with the AAPSS’s Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize in 2015.
Professional positions
- 2013–2022: Chancellor, University of Wisconsin–Madison
- 2009–2013: Under Secretary for Economic Affairs (2009–2012), Acting Deputy Secretary of Commerce (2010–2012), Deputy Secretary of Commerce (2012–2013), and Acting Secretary of Commerce (2011, 2012–2013), U.S. Department of Commerce (under President Barack Obama)
- 2008–2009: Robert S. Kerr Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, Brookings Institution
- 1999–2008: Joan and Sanford Weill Dean and Henry Carter Adams Collegiate Professor of Public Policy, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan
- 1997–1999: Member, Council of Economic Advisers (under President Bill Clinton)
- 1989–1999: Associate (1989–1994) and full (1994–1999) professor of economics, Northwestern University
- 1983–1989: Assistant professor of economics, Princeton University
Notable publications
- Blank, Rebecca M., and Michael S. Barr, eds. 2009. Insufficient Funds: Savings, Assets, Credit, and Banking among Low-Income Families. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
- Blank, Rebecca M., Sheldon H. Danziger, and Robert F. Schoeni, eds. 2006. Working and Poor: How Economic and Policy Changes Are Affecting Low-Wage Workers. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
- Blank, Rebecca M., and William McGurn. 2003. Is the Market Moral? A Dialogue on Religion, Economics, and Justice. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
- Blank, Rebecca, and Ron Haskins, eds. 2001. The New World of Welfare. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
- Blank, Rebecca M. 1997. It Takes a Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty. New York, NY/Princeton, NJ: Russell Sage Foundation/Princeton University Press.
Degrees
- BA, economics, University of Minnesota
- PhD, economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Induction Introduction
Remarks by Francine Blau
