Jeannette Wicks-Lim

Jeannette Wicks-Lim is a Research Professor at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she also earned her Ph.D. in economics. Wicks-Lim is a labor economist specializing in the low-wage labor market as well as the political economy of racism. Her research publications cover a wide range of topics, including minimum wage and living wage laws, overtime pay for agricultural workers, affirmative action policies, racial earnings inequality, the Earned Income Tax Credit, single payer programs, and clean energy policies. Her books include The Political Economy of Racism: The Persistence of Anti-Blackness in the U.S. (co-authored, 2025) and A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States (co-authored, 2008). She also co-edited Capitalism on Trial: Explorations in the Tradition of Thomas E. Weisskopf (2013). Wicks-Lim frequently serves as an economic policy consultant for non-governmental organizations as well as state and municipal legislative committees in her areas of research expertise. She currently serves on the board of the National Economics Association and the executive committee of the 7th World Conference on Remedies for Racial and Ethnic Economic Inequality.