Harry J. Holzer

Harry Joseph Holzer (born February 25, 1957) is an American economist. Holzer served as the chief economist for the United States Department of Labor during the Clinton administration. Holzer has been a critic of the Democratic Party's perceived identity politics and has instead advocated for practical policies such as improved education and job training and a focus on "good jobs" to improve earnings among workers without college degrees.

Holzer was a signer of a 2018 amici curiae brief that expressed support for Harvard University in the Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College lawsuit. But, in recent years, he has become more critical of the excesses of DEI programs at elite US colleges and universities.

Research Holzer's research has focused on the labor market problems of low-wage workers and other disadvantaged groups, particularly Black workers. He has studied the question of how employer characteristics, hiring practices and the job quality affect job opportunities for less-skilled workers, especially when they create "mismatches" between worker skills and those sought by employers, and between their respective geographic locations (or "spatial mismatch").

Holzer studied employer data extensively and implemented surveys of about 4000 firms during the 1990s on their hiring practices, skill needs and workforce characteristics. He analyzed trends in job quality and their effects on upward mobility for low-wage workers using LEHD data on workers and firms from the U.S. Census Bureau. He has analyzed data on postsecondary education and employment outcomes, especially for disadvantaged workers.

Holzer's more recent work focuses on the challenges low-income youth and adults face in American higher education and in the job market. He has written extensively about the employment problems of disadvantaged men (especially those with criminal records), advancement prospects for the working poor, and workforce development policy. He also has written about welfare reform, discrimination, affirmative action, job training programs, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. He recently served as an author of the National Academy of Sciences study on Reducing Intergenerational Poverty and also on the NAS panel on Federal Policy Impacts on Child Poverty. Earlier he helped coauthor the NAS report on Building a Skilled Technical Workforce.

Holzer's research on employment issues and policy has been funded by grants from the Joyce Foundation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Institute for Research on Poverty, the Upjohn Institute, the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, Mott Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the Public Policy Institute of California.

Works Books

The Economics of Affirmative Action. (Co-edited with David Neumark.) Edward Algar, 2004

Reshaping the American Workforce in a Changing Economy, (coedited with Demetra Nightingale). Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 2007

Articles Harry Holzer is the author of over 60 articles in peer-reviewed journals in economics and public policy, including articles in the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Economic Literature, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Labor Economics and the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.

He has written dozens of book chapters and many public policy briefs for the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, and provided testimony to Congressional committees and other federal agencies.

Recognition He is listed in Who's Who in Economics (2003 edition) and in Marquis’ Who's Who in America (beginning in 2008). Other honors include:

The Policy Innovation Prize from the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution (2011) The Leslie Whittington Award at Georgetown University (2002) The Distinguished Faculty Award at Michigan State University (1998) The Teacher-Scholar Award at Michigan State University (1988)