Isabel Sawhill

Isabel Sawhill is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, working in the Center on Children and Families and on the Future of the Middle Class Initiative. Her research spans a wide array of economic and social issues, including fiscal policy, economic growth, poverty, social mobility, and inequality. She previously served as vice president and director of the Economic Studies program from 2003 to 2006, and as co-director of the Center on Children and Families from 2006 to 2015. Prior to joining Brookings, she was a senior fellow at The Urban Institute. She served in the Clinton Administration as an Associate Director of OMB, where her responsibilities included all of the human resource programs of the federal government, accounting for one third of the federal budget. She attended Wellesley College and received her Ph.D. from New York University.