Heather McGhee is the Director of the Washington office of Demos, a New York-based non-partisan research and advocacy organization that focuses on economic equality, democratic participation, and strengthening the public sector in an effort to find public solutions to shared problems. McGhee advocates for these issues and develops and executes strategy to ensure their inclusion in the federal policy debate. She was previously the Deputy Policy Director, Domestic and Economic Policy, for the John Edwards for President 2008 campaign, and a Program Associate in Demos’ Economic Opportunity Program.
Speaking before the 2011 Fight Back USA Teach-in, hosted by Cornel West and Frances Fox Piven, McGhee addressed the challenges her generation faces due to the economic crisis: “I turned 30 last year, which puts me at the very start of the Millennial generation, and we are known for our sense of entrepreneurship, our volunteerism, our tolerance of diversity, and for being the first generation in American history to not do better than their parents. And that was clear before the Wall Street banks crashed the economy and left our generation to graduate into the worst job market since the great Depression.”
A frequent contributor to print, radio and television news pieces, McGhee has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, and is a recurring commentator on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Current TV. Her writing and research on poverty, inequality, and financial reform has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Huffington Post. McGhee co-authored a chapter on retirement insecurity in Inequality Matters: The Growing Economic Divide in America and its Poisonous Consequences. She received her B.A. in American Studies from Yale and is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
