Robert James Lampman (September 25, 1920 in

Plover Plovers ( , ) are members of a widely distributed group of wader, wading birds of subfamily Charadriinae. The term "plover" applies to all the members of the subfamily, though only about half of them include it in their name. Species lis ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

–March 4, 1997 in Madison) was an American economist known for his research on

poverty Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environmen ...

and the measurement of

income distribution In economics, income distribution covers how a country's total GDP is distributed amongst its population. Economic theory and economic policy have long seen income and its distribution as a central concern. Unequal distribution of income causes e ...

Academic career

Lampman was a professor of

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

from 1958 until his retirement in 1987. From 1962 to 1963, he was a member of President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...

Council of Economic Advisors The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is a United States agency within the Executive Office of the President established in 1946, which advises the president of the United States on economic policy. The CEA provides much of the empirical resea ...

, where he began working after being brought to

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Walter Heller Walter Wolfgang Heller (27 August 1915 – 15 June 1987) was a leading American economist of the 1960s, and an influential adviser to President John F. Kennedy as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, 1961–1964. Life and career Hell ...

. He is well known for his work on the council, which played a major role in the design of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

government's War on Poverty in the 1960s, including writing the chapter on poverty in the 1964 Economic Report of the President. This work led

James Tobin James Tobin (March 5, 1918 – March 11, 2002) was an American economist who served on the Council of Economic Advisers and consulted with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and taught at Harvard University, Harvard and Yale Uni ...

to say in 1997 that Lampman was "the intellectual architect of the War on Poverty". After returning to the University of Wisconsin, he became also a major force behind the founding of the university's Institute for Research on Poverty in 1966, after which he served as its interim director until June of that year. He also became an early and outspoken advocate for a

negative income tax In economics, a negative income tax (NIT) is a system which reverses the direction in which tax is paid for incomes below a certain level; in other words, earners above that level pay money to the state while earners below it receive money. NIT ...

, which eventually led to the introduction of the

Earned Income Tax Credit The United States federal earned income tax credit or earned income credit (EITC or EIC) is a refundable tax credit for low- to moderate-income working individuals and couples, particularly those with children. The amount of EITC benefit depend ...

References

1920 births 1997 deaths University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty People from Plover, Wisconsin Economists from Wisconsin 20th-century American economists {{US-economist-stub