Oren Cass
Oren Cass is the executive director of American Compass and author of The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America (2018). He is a contributing opinion writer for the Financial Times and his work also appears regularly in publications including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
From 2005 to 2015, Oren worked as a management consultant in Bain & Company’s Boston and Delhi offices. During this period, he also earned his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was elected vice president and treasurer of the Harvard Law Review and oversaw the journal’s budget and operations. While still in law school, Oren also became Domestic Policy Director for Governor Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, editing and producing the campaign’s “jobs book” and developing its domestic policy strategy, proposals, and research. He joined the Manhattan Institute as a senior fellow in 2015 and became a prolific scholar, publishing more than 15 reports for MI and editing its popular “Issues 2016” and “Issues 2020” series, testifying before seven congressional committees and speaking on dozens of college campuses. He founded American Compass at the start of 2020.
Romney, Hawley, Rubio, and Lee’s Building Blocks for Family Policy Share This
Senator Josh Hawley’s proposal this morning for a “Parent Tax Credit” is a welcome expansion of the conservative debate over family policy and, in particular, a federal benefit paid to families with children. Following on Senator Mitt Romney’s “Family Security Act” in February and the subsequent proposal from Senators Marco Rubio and Mike Lee to […]
Statistical Gnosticism on the Right Share This
Folks, it’s time we had a serious conversation about statistical gnosticism. I talk a lot here at American Compass about the right-of-center’s problem with market fundamentalism—the tendency to say things like, “markets do not fail us, we fail markets” or “as we are dealing with changes in our economy, tax cuts are always a good […]
What American Workers Really Want Instead of a Union at Amazon Share This
POLITICO—American Compass executive director Oren Cass discusses the failed unionization drive at Amazon’s Bessemer, AL, warehouse and what it says about what kind of support and representation workers actually want.
America’s Microchip Slip Share This
NATIONAL REVIEW—American Compass’s Oren Cass and Richard Oyeniran explore the decline of America’s semiconductor industry and how the U.S. can retake the lead in the great semiconductor race.
The US needs to rediscover the meaning of investment Share This
FINANCIAL TIMES—American Compass executive director Oren Cass makes the case that fortunes are made in financial markets without benefiting the real economy.
The Corporate Erosion of Capitalism Share This
A Firm-Level Analysis of Declining Business Investment, 1971-2017
We’re Just Speculating Here… Share This
The Rise of Wall Street and the Fall of American Investment
Jonah Goldberg Takes On Public Policy Stuff Share This
Jonah Goldberg, Cliff Asness Chair in Applied Liberty at the American Enterprise Institute, had a lot to say about American Compass on a recent podcast, beginning around the 15:00 mark (and still going at the 25:00 mark…).
Breaking the Spell Share This
CITY JOURNAL—Executive director Oren Cass looks back on the history of welfare reform and explains why fighting poverty requires more than just sending money to the poor.
The Left’s Welfare Extremism Share This
NATIONAL REVIEW—Executive director Oren Cass on how left-wing critics of our family-benefit proposal are sorely misguided.
Introducing the Edgerton Essays Share This
The population of policy analysts and commentators is drawn inevitably from the ranks of the college-educated professionals who excel at and enjoy reading and writing all day. But as more of our politics and policies become nationalized, those doing the politicking and policymaking have tended to become ever more removed from large segments of the […]
Put Working Families at the Front of the Line for Help Share This
THE NEW YORK TIMES—American Compass executive director Oren Cass argues that a policy that sustains people in joblessness is not ultimately anti-poverty.