Chris Hughes is an economist and writer who serves as Chair of the Economic Security Project, a leading nonprofit advocating for economic power for all Americans. He is the author of Marketcrafters: The 100-Year Struggle to Shape the American Economy, published by Simon & Schuster’s Avid Reader Press in 2025.Hughes holds degrees in history and economics from Harvard and The New School for Social Research and is completing his PhD at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His writing and essays have been published by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Time Magazine, and others. His first book, Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn, was published by St Martin’s Press in 2018.In 2004, Hughes co-founded Facebook and later directed Barack Obama's digital organizing efforts in his insurgent 2008 campaign. Hughes chairs the board of the Brooklyn-based Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis and serves on the boards of the New York Public Library and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He lives in New York’s Greenwich Village with his husband and their two children.
Recent researchBigger than Penn Central: The Financial Crisis of 1970 and the Origins of the Federal Reserve's Systemic Guarantee, Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics, September, 2024Direct Cash Payments in the Next Recession, Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at The New School, December 2023Marketcrafting: A 21st-Century Industrial Policy, Roosevelt Institute, May 2023Digital Dollars: Critical Design Choices and Effects of a Central Bank Digital Currency, Roosevelt Institute, May, 2022Recent media"On Section 230 - How to Fix It with John Avlon" Podcast, February, 2025"America’s Inflation Villain Gets a Makeover," The New York Times, April, 2023"Has history been too harsh on Arthur Burns?," The Indicator from Planet Money, February, 2023"The argument against the Fed creating a digital currency," Marketplace, June 2, 2022“A Founder of Facebook Says it's Time to Break It Up,” The Daily, May 9, 2019“City Arts and Lectures: with Courtney E. Martin,” November 7, 2019
Articles and EssaysBanking on Democracy: Fed governance can be improved, of course, but it is not fundamentally undemocratic., Democracy Journal, Spring 2025.Why do People Like Elon Musk Love Donald Trump? It's Not Just About Money, New York Times, September 25, 2024Preparing for the Next Recession: How Policymakers Can Safeguard Families and the U.S. Economy, Economic Security Project, January, 2024The Promise of Marketcrafting, Democracy Journal, May, 2023If Banks Want More Deposit Insurance, They Should Pay for It, TIME Magazine, March 23, 2023Rethinking Arthur Burns, the 'Worst' Fed Chair in History, Democracy Journal, September 26, 2022An American CBDC is not the way to fight China’s financial might, Financial Times, May 11, 2022How to Fix Social Media Wall Street Journal, October 29th, 2021The Free Market is Dead: What Will Replace It?, Time Magazine, April 26, 2021The US Needs Direct Cash Payments Through this Crisis — and the Next, Financial Times, August 18, 2020Why Americans Need a Guaranteed Income, New York Times, May 1, 2020Americans Need Significant and Sustained Cash Now to Avoid Economic Calamity, Time, March 19, 2020The Case for a Wealth Tax, Democracy Journal, Summer 2019Facebook co-founder: Libra coin would shift power into the wrong hands, Financial Times, June 21, 2019It's Time to Break up Facebook, New York Times, May 9, 2019Progressive Economics Are Ascendant—Among Democrats, and at the Ballot Box, The Nation, November 15, 2018