Meet Bernie Sanders’ Kansas City economists

They’re Stephanie Kelton and William Black, and both hail from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Each has signed on as economic adviser to Sanders’ presidential campaign, formalizing the kind of work they’ve done with the senator from Vermont in recent years.

Kelton and Black are part of a team of economic advisers, including former labor secretary Robert Reich and James Galbraith at the University of Texas in Austin, who help the Sanders campaign develop policies.

Randall Wray, a fellow UMKC economics professor, credits Sanders for embracing thinkers from outside the economic mainstream. “The mainstream is a complete disaster and a complete disaster for our country,” Wray said.

The alternative thinking at UMKC includes calls for the federal government to become an employer of last resort, essentially guaranteeing work to those who want it just as Franklin Roosevelt’s programs did during the Great Depression. UMKC’s economics department also is a leading voice in modern money theory, an explanation of federal spending’s role in the economy that some have dubbed “the Kansas City school” of economic thought.

With his credentials in law, economics and criminology, Black has made a name for himself by decrying wrongdoing and pushing for reforms in the financial system as well as pressing for prosecution of key players in the financial crisis.

He said advising Sanders is a natural extension of their agreement on some issues, such as breaking up the biggest banks. Both, Black said, understand that the government’s designation of the largest banks as “systemically important” really means they pose a danger to the financial system.

Each attacks campaign contributions from Wall Street. This is one tenet of a group Black helped form called Bank Whistleblowers United. It asks candidates to “pledge not to take campaign contributions from financial felons. That group, according to the federal agencies that have investigated them, includes virtually all the largest banks.”

Kelton had a breadth of knowledge that affected the committee’s work on many subjects, said Robyn Hiestand, the committee’s education staffer who worked on Sanders’ college affordability platform.

“Stephanie was instrumental in how to think about that, what should we be saying, what should Bernie be doing on college affordability,” Hiestand said.

Kelton had a hand in crafting letters and getting economists and others to sign on to them as endorsements of Sanders’ policies on Wall Street reforms, Medicare for all and raising the minimum wage, said Warren Gunnels, Sanders’ former staff director on the budget committee and now his policy director on the presidential campaign.

“It’s time to get back to thinking about investment in infrastructure and education, those sorts of things that drive long-term economic growth,” she said. “This is what Senator Sanders is looking for.”