Angela N Hanks

Angela Hanks is chief of policy programs at The Century Foundation. Angela has extensive experience developing and advancing policies and narratives that promote an inclusive and expansive vision for the economy. Angela most recently served as the associate director of external affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), where she led the bureau’s external engagement strategy to ensure its policy agenda was informed by experts, industry stakeholders, and consumers across the country.

Angela also served in the Biden-Harris Administration as acting assistant secretary of the Employment and Training Administration in the U.S. Department of Labor, where she worked to advance worker-centered policies that lead to quality jobs for all workers, particularly those who are marginalized. Her work has been cited in various publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Atlantic and was previously a regular contributor to Forbes.com.

Angela has deep experience in advancing progressive policies in the nonprofit and government sectors. Prior to joining the Administration, Angela was Deputy Executive Director at the Groundwork Collaborative, where she worked to advance an equitable, people-centered vision for the economy. She has also held roles at think tanks and policy organizations where she has written extensively about how to make the labor market more inclusive of marginalized workers.

Before joining Groundwork in 2019, Angela served as director of the Center for Postsecondary and Economic Success at CLASP, director of workforce development policy at the Center for American Progress (CAP), and senior federal policy analyst at the National Skills Coalition. Angela began her career on Capitol Hill as a counsel on the democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee and legislative assistant to Congressman Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD).

Angela earned her bachelor’s degree in political science from George Washington University and her law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law.

Sub-specialities:
recession (particularly focused on the causes of the current recession and the policy response)
labor market inequality
job quality
worker power
racial inequality in labor markets
racial wealth gap
Black women in the economy
polling on economic policy issues
workforce development policy