Josh Barro

Family and education

Barro's father is the Harvard professor and macroeconomist Robert Barro. After growing up in Massachusetts, Barro received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Harvard University. While in college, he spent a summer interning for Grover Norquist.

Career

Barro previously worked as a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, as a real estate banker for Wells Fargo, as the lead writer for the Ticker, an economics and politics blog hosted by Bloomberg L.P., and as the politics editor at Business Insider.

He appears regularly on Bloomberg Television and MSNBC and has appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO and on All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC.

In early 2013, he was a prominent supporter of a potential trillion dollar coin, but by late 2013, he had changed his mind.

Time named Barro's Twitter feed one of "The 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2013," one of ten in the Politics category. In 2012, Forbes selected him as one of the "30 Under 30" media "brightest stars under the age of 30," and David Brooks listed him as part of the "vibrant and increasingly influential center-right conversation." A former aide to Barack Obama included Barro on a short list of Obama's favorite columnists. He is currently the host and moderator of KCRW's Left, Right & Center.

In 2014, Barro left Business Insider to join The New York Times' "The Upshot." In 2016, Barro was again hired by Business Insider as a senior editor.

Views

Earlier in his career, Barro described himself as Republican, although wrote about his criticism of many of its policies. He also identified as a neoliberal.

After the 2012 United States elections, Barro became increasingly critical of the Republican Party, writing that "the party’s economic agenda, as embodied in the latest [Paul] Ryan budget, is simply terrible for the vast majority of Americans." Barro called Congressional Republicans "crazy and awful". Reaction by other conservative media members to Barro's criticism of the Republican party led The Atlantic to name Barro "the loneliest Republican." Ezra Klein said that based on Barro's views, "He doesn't come across as much of a Republican."

On October 11, 2016, following the Republican party's nomination of Donald Trump for president, Barro said he had left the Republican party and registered as a Democrat. Barro cited as reasons for his decision the Republican party's "fact-free environment so many of its voters live in, and because of the anti-Democrat hysteria that had been willfully whipped up by so many of its politicians," which created a "vulnerability in our democracy."

Hamburger problem

Barro used the term hamburger problem to criticize the perceived tendency of some progressives in the US to hassle people on their personal choices. For example, eating meat hamburgers can be criticized based on the arguments that it's harmful for animals, it contributes to global warming, and it's unhealthy.

Personal life

Barro lives in Manhattan, New York, is gay and in 2017, he married Zachary Allen, chairman of TIPAH Consulting and former Democratic National Committee official. He is also an atheist.