Brimmer, Andrew Felton

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Brimmer, Andrew Felton

September 13, 1926

Born in Newellton, Louisiana, economist Andrew F. Brimmer attended high school in Louisiana before moving to Bremerton, Washington, in 1944. Shortly thereafter, he joined the U.S. Army and served in Hawaii from 1945 until 1946. Subsidized by the GI Bill, Brimmer was able to attend the University of Washington; he received his B.A. in 1950 and his M.A. in 1951. As a Fulbright fellow, Brimmer traveled to India during 1951 and 1952 for a year of postgraduate work at the University of Bombay. Returning to the United States, he completed a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University in 1957.

Brimmer began his career as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (1955–58). During his time at the bank, he was one of the several economists sent to the Sudan in late 1956 and early 1957 to aid the Sudanese in establishing a central bank. Brimmer then taught at Michigan State University (1958–1961) and at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business (1961–1966). President John F. Kennedy appointed Brimmer as a deputy assistant secretary of commerce for economic policy in 1963; two years later, he became assistant secretary for economic affairs. In 1966 President Lyndon B. Johnson named him to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank. The first black member of the board, Brimmer was an expert on international monetary issues. While at the Federal Reserve, he consistently advocated a tight monetary policy, favoring the restriction of the money supply and interest rates in order to control inflation. Serving only half of his fourteen-year term, Brimmer resigned in 1974 to take a teaching position at Harvard's Graduate School of Business. Two years later, he left Harvard and founded Brimmer and Company, Inc., an economic consulting firm in Washington, D.C.

A prolific writer, Brimmer has authored numerous books and articles on various economic topics, ranging from public utilities to international trade and finance. Since 1978 he has regularly contributed "Economic Perspectives" articles in Black Enterprise. In his writings Brimmer has consistently argued that the disparity in income between whites and blacks results only in part from differences in educational achievement; underlying the differential, he says, is persistent racial discrimination, which "hampers access" for African Americans to higher-paying jobs. At the same time, he has contended that other problems afflicting the African-American community, such as the high rate of teenage pregnancy and the high rate of unemployment among young black people, result mainly from behavior instead of outside forces such as the economy. A proponent of encouraging African Americans to look beyond small business to larger markets and increased capitalization, he took part in President Bill Clinton's economic summit in December 1992.

Brimmer has served on the boards of numerous corporations and organizations, including United Air Lines, Du Pont, and the Tuskegee Institute. He has twice been president of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, been cochairman of the Interracial Council for Business Opportunity, and is a member of many professional organizations. Among the many honors Brimmer has received are awards from the National Economic Association, One Hundred Black Men, and the New York Urban Coalition.

In 1995, Brimmer was named by President Bill Clinton to head a five-person financial control board that helped steer the District of Columbia through a severe financial crisis. A decade later, Brimmer continued to serve as president of Brimmer & Company, his economic and financial consulting firm based in Washington, D.C.