Stephen Rose is a nonresident fellow in the Income and Benefits Policy Center at the Urban Institute. He is a nationally recognized labor economist and has spent the last 35 years researching and writing about the interactions between formal education, training, career movements, incomes, and earnings. His book Social Stratification in the United States was originally published in 1978, and the seventh edition was released in 2014. His book Rebound: Why America Will Emerge Stronger from the Financial Crisis addresses the causes of the financial crisis and the evolving structure of the US economy over the last three decades.

Rose has worked with large longitudinal and cross-sectional data sets to develop unique approaches to understanding long-term income and earnings movements. He recently coauthored the report “The Economy Goes to College” showing that the high-end service economy of work in offices, health care, and education was the main driver of the US postindustrial economy, responsible for 64 percent of employment, 74 percent of earnings, and over 80 percent of workers with a bachelor’s or advanced degree.

Before coming to Urban, Rose held senior positions at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, Educational Testing Service, the US Department of Labor, Joint Economic Committee of Congress, the National Commission for Employment Policy, and the Washington State Senate. His commentaries have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and other print and broadcast media. He has a BA from Princeton University and an MA and PhD in economics from the City University of New York.