Roger Hickey is an American political activist and economic policy advocate. He has co-founded several think tanks, organizations, and grassroots coalitions, including the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the Campaign for America's Future (CAF), and Americans United to Protect Social Security.
Early Activism and Career
Hickey began his career as an organizer in the late 1960s while attending the University of Virginia, working with the Virginia Students Civil Rights Committee and the Southern Student Organizing Committee. In 1972, he joined Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (CALC), an organization of religious leaders opposed to the US war in Vietnam, where he served as a producer for CALC's "Help Unsell the War" campaign, creating television, radio, and print advertisements expressing opposition to the war.
In 1973, Hickey co-founded the Public Media Center in San Francisco. As Media Director, he developed advertising campaigns for environmental groups, peace and disarmament organizations, labor unions, women's and minority education, and other public interest issues. The Public Media Center won the first FCC Fairness Doctrine ruling requiring broadcasters to provide free air time for antinuclear television spots in response to pro-nuclear utility advertising.
Hickey served as an associate director of the National Center for Economic Alternatives. During the Jimmy Carter administration, he—along with Mark Green and Gar Alperovitz—organized Consumers Opposed to Inflation in the Necessities (COIN), which mobilized over sixty organizations to support a progressive program to control inflation.
In 1986, Hickey collaborated with economist Jeff Faux to establish the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), where he served as vice president and director of communications.
Campaign for America's Future
Hickey is co-director of the Campaign for America's Future (CAF), launched in 1996, which describes itself as a "strategy center of the progressive movement." Under CAF, he co-authored "The Solidarity Agenda," a five-point economic agenda signed by 100 citizen leaders and activists calling for a citizens' movement to address economic inequality.
As co-director (with Robert Borosage) of CAF and the Institute for America's Future, Hickey organized a series of annual "Take Back America" conferences. In 2008, he was a founder of Health Care for America Now!, a coalition of over 1,000 national and local organizations aimed at reforming the US healthcare system. Working with Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker, Hickey helped promote the public option, a policy endorsed by candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. During the George W. Bush administration, he and CAF helped lead a campaign to stop the privatization of Social Security through Americans United to Protect Social Security. Hickey, Borosage, and others also created the Apollo Alliance to advocate for a public investment program aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions and creating sustainable jobs.
Writing and Appearances
Hickey has appeared on television and radio, and has written for publications including The New York Times, The American Prospect, AlterNet, Common Dreams, HuffPost, The Nation, and Truthout. In 2001, Hickey and Robert Borosage co-edited The Next Agenda: Blueprint for a New Progressive Movement, a book of essays by progressive thinkers and activists.
Note: There are also other individuals named Roger Hickey, including a CEO of Global Economics Group (a financial consulting firm) and a world champion downhill skateboarder and inventor. This entry covers the American political activist and economic policy advocate, who is the most widely documented figure by that name in encyclopedic sources.
