Lessons From the White House
When professor Kirabo Jackson first arrived at the White House last year, he had flashbacks to his intense grad school days. A renowned expert in education policy and labor economics, Jackson spent the first two months cramming information about AI, supply chains, small business challenges, and an enormous number of three-letter government acronyms.
“I needed to familiarize myself with specific details of every policy,” said Jackson, who recently returned to Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy after serving on President Biden's Council on Economic Advisers.
“In academic research, we often focus on the conceptual and don’t get into the nitty gritty details. In the policy world, all those things matter. If you’re going into research, learning the nuts and bolts can be a valuable skill.”
In a wide-ranging conversation with sociologist Andrew Papachristos, director of the Institute for Policy Research, Jackson spoke about working in government, the important ways research can influence policy, and why it’s better to talk like a “real person” when you’re trying to explain concepts like inflation to the public.
More than 200 undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty attended the event, held in White Auditorium at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Global Hub. Organized by the Weinberg College's Department of Economics, the event was co-sponsored by the School of Education and Social Policy, the Institute for Policy Research, and the Kellogg School of Management.
Jackson, the Abraham Harris Professor of Education and Social Policy and a fellow at the Institute for Policy Research, began his term with the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers in August 2023.
A member of the American Academy of Arts and Science and the National Academy of Education, Jackson has long been interested in how people are affected by systems. He is best known for his work showing that investing in children early and often pays off during adulthood, especially for kids from low-income families.
Some of his most original and influential new research tackles the question of what makes someone a good teacher and casts doubt on whether test scores are the best way—or only way—to assess how much teachers or schools benefits students in the long run.
Here's what we learned from Jackson's talk:
The White House Council on Economic Advisers functions as a think tank within the White House. They try to make sense of what’s happening in the economy and communicate that to the rest of the White House. “Every time you look at breaking news and they say, ‘oh, unemployment has dipped down to 3.7% or the consumer price index has gone up,’ we have already analyzed that data,” Jackson said. “We were watching those numbers like hawks.”
It's crucial to think ahead. If a hurricane is in the forecast, the council would begin assessing how it might affect the economy. “We’d ask, ‘what is the path of the hurricane? Is it going to hit any refineries? How much oil is coming out of there?’” Jackson said. Then they’d prepare an analysis. When the bridge collapsed in Baltimore, they wanted to know the kinds of goods coming in to see how it might disrupt the economy. “We were very, very focused on supply chain snags and resilience,” he said.
Important initiatives will persist. Jackson cited the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the largest federal investment in public transportation in history, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which will help in a transition to clean energy, as two areas started under the Biden Administration that will continue to benefit the American people. They also began working to induce local areas to relax housing restrictions, and he expects housing prices to go down. “We laid the foundation,” he said.
Part of the job included meeting with journalists and stakeholders— small business groups, people running childcare centers—listening to them and using that information to refine how they thought about policy.
Jackson’s portfolio was broad, but childcare was an important part of his work. “We’d talk to providers, analyze the market, think about what would happen when the childcare stabilization funds run out and use that information to inform policy,” he said. “Our analysis found that the money that went out through the American Rescue Plan actually increased maternal labor supply by about 3%.”
Inflation is a normal thing that happens when you have a healthy, growing economy. “If you knew that prices were going to fall by 40% in the next year, you wouldn’t buy a house or a car; you wouldn’t do a lot of things,” he said. “That would be putting on the brakes, and you’d plunge the economy into recession. What really matters for the quality of life is whether your wages are growing faster than prices, which we’ve had for about 20, 30, months now. That’s good for the American worker.”
He learned the art of changing direction. While he enjoyed speaking to the press, there were times when he had to filter his remarks, especially when he didn’t necessarily agree with the premise of a question. “Our natural inclination is to explain it and answer the question, but in a politically charged atmosphere, you have to practice the soft pivot,” he said.
Still, he wasn’t allowed near the press for the first two months, when he was still absorbing information. But by the time he was in front of the camera, he had all the data sources, the unemployment and inflation rates, and other relevant data at his fingertips.
Jackson improved his communication skills by speaking “like a regular person” (and not a professor.) “They want you to speak in relatively short sentences and answer the question directly. You don't elaborate; you don’t linger. It also means you don’t go into the minutia or nuance. You just focus on what matters. I had to train myself to slow down and take a breath because I speak quickly.”
It’s important to know your audience. “The Council on Economic Advisers has the data. “We run numbers, but no one wants us to come in and say, ‘Oh, that policy stinks,’” he said. “It’s really important to walk into a room and say, “if this is your objective, perhaps you could do it this way to mitigate some of the ill effects you might see.” It means focusing on the things they care about and not trying to ram your point down someone’s throat.”
Research is constantly used to influence decisions, and not just economic research. If they were doing a cost benefit analysis and wanted to know things they couldn’t quantify, they would draw on papers in psychology, sociology, anthropology and other disciplines to help with decision making, Jackson said. “Research does matter. It’s used behind closed doors and has a real-world impact. It may not be direct, but it can absolutely influence things in the long run.”
In his first meeting, President Biden offered Jackson his chair. “I was the (newest) and lowest ranked person in the room, so I didn't actually have a seat at the table,” Jackson said. Biden offered his chair, referring to the one behind the president's “Resolute desk” (which was crafted from the oak timbers of the British ship H.M.S. Resolute.) "The staffers were like, ‘oh, absolutely not’ and got me a chair. But that’s who he is. He truly cares, and really, really, really cares about the American people. He cared deeply about making sure the economy was beneficial, not just for those at the top, but for the people at the bottom and middle class."