Karen Kornbluh

About Karen Kornbluh

Karen Kornbluh (born 1963) is an American economist, former United States Treasury Department official, and expert on communications policy, international trade and issues affecting working families. She is currently policy director for U.S. Senator Barack Obama.

Obama's decision to hire her in 2004 was seen as a sign of his determination to build an unusually strong staff for a freshman Senator. A 2007 New York Sun article mentions Kornbluh as one of several former Clinton Administration officials who have joined "the Obama camp," rather than Hillary Rodham Clinton's team, for the 2008 presidential election.

Before joining Obama's staff, Kornbluh founded the Work and Family Program at the New America Foundation, having joined the centrist think tank as a Markle Fellow. She has argued for a modernized social insurance system that would better meet the needs of "juggler families," which are dependent on the incomes of both parents or that of a single parent. Prominent conservative commentator David Brooks cited Kornbluh's piece on juggler families as one of the notable magazine articles that characterized 2006 as a "year of losing ground," or a time of prounounced anxiety in the United States. Kornbluh has also published articles on economic policy in such periodicals as The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times and The Washington Post .