White House Author

Katharine G. Abraham is a former member of the Council of Economic Advisers and was responsible for offering the President objective advice on the formulation of economic policy. During her time on the Council of Economic Advisers, Abraham was on leave from the University of Maryland, where she is a faculty associate in the Maryland Population Research Center and a professor in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology. Abraham’s research included work on employment and unemployment, labor market policy and the measurement of economic activity. Nominated by President William J. Clinton, Abraham served as Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics from 1993-2001. Prior to that, she held appointments in the Department of Economics, University of Maryland; the Brookings Institution; and the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a Fellow of the Society of Labor Economists and of the American Statistical Association; holds an honorary doctorate from Iowa State University; and is a past Vice-President of the American Economic Association. Dr. Abraham earned her B.S. in Economics from Iowa State University in 1976 and her Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1982.