Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias (/ᵻˈɡleɪsiəs/; born May 18, 1981) is a liberal American writer. He writes about economics and politics.

Life and career

Yglesias's father Rafael Yglesias is a screenwriter and novelist. His paternal grandparents were novelists Jose Yglesias and Helen Yglesias (née Bassine). His paternal grandfather was of Spanish-Cuban background, and his three other grandparents were of Eastern European Jewish descent.

Yglesias went to high school at The Dalton School in New York City and later attended Harvard University where he studied philosophy. He graduated magna cum laude in 2003. He was editor-in-chief of The Harvard Independent, a weekly newsmagazine, and also wrote for several other campus publications.

Yglesias started blogging in early 2002, while still in college, focusing mainly on American politics and public policy issues, often approached from an abstract, philosophical perspective. He was one of the supporters of the Iraq war. Yglesias joined the American Prospect as a writing fellow upon his graduation in 2003, subsequently becoming a staff writer. His posts appeared regularly on the magazine's collaborative weblog TAPPED. His personal blog has been hosted, at various times, on Blogger, Typepad, Josh Marshall's TPMCafe, and at matthewyglesias.com. From June 2007 until August 2008, he was a staff writer at The Atlantic Monthly, and his blog was hosted on the magazine's website, The Atlantic. In July 2008, he announced that he would leave The Atlantic Monthly for the Center for American Progress where he wrote for its blog, ThinkProgress, because he missed "the sense of collegiality that comes from working with like-minded colleagues on a shared enterprise" and thought he could "help advance their mission". On November 21, 2011, he left ThinkProgress to work as a business and economics correspondent at Slate's Moneybox. He does not have a degree in economics.