About the Author: Jeffrey C. Fuhrer is a nonresident senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a foundation fellow for the Eastern Bank Foundation. In addition, he is working with a large collaborative to update the findings of the Federal Reserve’s 2015 “Color of Wealth in Boston” study. This group hopes to use the new findings to design programs and policies to close the wealth gap in the Greater Boston metro area and surrounding communities. Fuhrer recently finished a two-and-a-half-year term as a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. In that capacity, he conducted research on the Federal Reserve’s new monetary policy framework, and sources of the racial and ethnic wealth gaps.

Fuhrer previously served as director of research, executive vice president and senior policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He has been an associate economist of the Federal Open Market Committee and regularly attended this key U.S. policymaking meeting with the Bank’s president. Fuhrer began his career at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C. He has been active in economic research for more than three decades and has served as an associate editor for the American Economic Review. Fuhrer has published numerous scholarly papers on the interactions among monetary policy, inflation, consumer spending, and asset prices. He has been married for 43 years and has three grown children. Fuhrer earned a bachelor’s degree in economics, graduating first in the department with highest honors from Princeton University. He received his master’s degree and Ph.D in economics from Harvard University.

About the Book: The Myth That Made Us exposes how false narratives—of a supposedly post-racist nation, of the self-made man, of the primacy of profit- and shareholder value-maximizing for businesses, and of minimal government interference—have been used to excuse gross inequities and to shape and sustain the US economic system that delivers them. Jeff Fuhrer argues that systemic racism continues to produce vastly disparate outcomes and that our brand of capitalism favors doing little to reduce disparities. Evidence from other developed capitalist economies shows it doesn't have to be that way. We broke this (mean-spirited) economy. We can fix it. Rather than merely laying blame at the feet of both conservatives and liberals for aiding and abetting an unjust system, Fuhrer charts a way forward. He supplements evidence from data with insights from community voices and outlines a system that provides more equal opportunity to accumulate both human and financial capital. His key areas of focus include universal access to high-quality early childhood education; more effective use of our community college system as a pathway to stable employment; restructuring key aspects of the low-wage workplace; providing affordable housing and transit links; supporting people of color by serving as mentors, coaches, and allies; and implementing Baby Bonds and Reparations programs to address the accumulated loss of wealth among Black people due to the legacy of enslavement and institutional discrimination. Fuhrer emphasizes embracing humility, research-based approaches, and community involvement as ways to improve economic opportunity.

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