Shai Akabas
Director of Economic Policy
Bipartisan Policy Center
Washington, DC
Shai Akabas is BPC’s director of economic policy. He has conducted research on a variety of economic policy issues, including the federal budget, retirement security, and the financing of higher education. Akabas joined BPC in 2010 and staffed the Domenici-Rivlin Debt Reduction Task Force that year. He also assisted Jerome H. Powell, now Chairman of the Federal Reserve, in his work on the federal debt limit. For the past several years, Akabas has steered BPC’s Commission on Retirement Security and Personal Savings, co-chaired by former Senator Kent Conrad and the Honorable James B. Lockhart III.
Akabas has been interviewed by publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, and has published op-eds in The Hill and The Christian Science Monitor. He has been featured as an expert guest several times on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.
Prior to joining BPC, Akabas worked as a satellite office director on New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2009 campaign for reelection. Born and raised in New York City, he received his B.A. in economics and history from Cornell University and an M.S. in applied economics from Georgetown University.