Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman was born in Brooklyn, New York City, on July 31, 1912, the fourth and last child and the first son of his family. His parents, Sarah Ethel (Landau) and Jeno Saul Friedman, were both born in Carpatho-Ruthenia and emigrated to the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry in their teens; his mother ran a small retail dry goods store, while his father pursued a series of mostly unsuccessful “jobbing” ventures.⁠[1][2]

When he was about a year old the family moved to Rahway, New JerseyNew JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the eastern United States on the Atlantic Ocean, bordered by New York State, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, with the Hudson River forming its northeastern boundary and the Delaware River its western boundary; its capital is Trenton and its largest city is Newark. One of the original 13 colonies, it became the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on December 18, 1787, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 9,288,994.Open the full entry. He graduated from Rahway High School in 1928; his father died during his senior year.⁠[1]

Friedman attended Rutgers University on a competitive scholarship, first studying mathematics and then economics, and graduated in 1932 having completed the equivalent of majors in both.⁠[1][3]

In 1932–33 he did graduate work at the University of Chicago on a tuition scholarship, where he met Rose Director, whom he married six years later. He then spent a year at Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University, formally Columbia University in the City of New York, is a private research university in New York City and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1754 by royal charter from King George II as King's College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in New York State and the fifth oldest in the United States. It was renamed Columbia College in 1784 and adopted the university name and moved to Manhattan's Morningside Heights in 1896. It has 17 schools and four affiliated colleges, with 35,978 students enrolled in fall 2025. Legal scholar Jennifer L. Mnookin became president on July 1, 2026.Open the full entry on a fellowship, returned to Chicago for a year as research assistant to Henry Schultz, and in the summer of 1935 worked for the National Resources Committee in Washington.⁠[1]

In the fall of 1937 Friedman joined the National Bureau of Economic Research to assist Simon Kuznets; their joint study, “Incomes from Independent Professional Practice,” which became his doctoral dissertation, was completed by 1940 and published after the war.⁠[1]

From 1941 to 1943 he worked on wartime tax policy at the U.S. Treasury Department; from 1943 to 1945 he was a mathematical statistician in a statistical research group at Columbia University; and in 1945–46 he taught at the University of Minnesota. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1946.⁠[1][4]

Friedman joined the University of Chicago in 1946 to teach economic theory and remained there until he retired in 1977, becoming the leading American advocate of monetarism. Around 1946 he also rejoined the National Bureau of Economic Research to lead its study of the role of money in the business cycle, assisted by Anna J. Schwartz.⁠[1][5][4]

In the fall of 1950 he spent a quarter in Paris as a consultant to the Marshall Plan agency, studying the Schuman Plan; in 1953–54 he was a Fulbright Visiting Professor at Gonville & Caius College, University of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a university in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom. It gives 1209 as its founding date, is made up of Schools, Faculties, Departments and autonomous Colleges, and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry; and in 1964–65 he was a visiting research professor at Columbia University.⁠[1][4]

In 1964 Friedman was an economic adviser to Senator Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign, and in 1968 he served on Richard NixonRichard NixonRichard Nixon (1913–1994) was an American politician who represented California in the U.S. House and Senate, served as vice president from 1953 to 1961 and was the 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974. His administration opened relations with China, signed strategic arms limitation agreements with the Soviet Union and ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War; he resigned over the Watergate scandal on August 9, 1974, the only U.S. president to do so.Open the full entry’s economic advisory committee. From 1966 to 1983 he wrote a column for Newsweek every three weeks; the columns were later collected in part in “Bright Promises, Dismal Performance.”⁠[1][6]

Friedman was the sole recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, formally the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred NobelAlfred NobelAlfred Nobel (1833–1896) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor and industrialist who invented dynamite, the blasting cap, blasting gelatine and the smokeless powder ballistite and founded enterprises in more than 20 countries. Through his will he left his fortune to establish the five Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace.Open the full entry, “for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy”; at the time of the award he was affiliated with the University of Chicago.⁠[2]

From 1977 until his death in 2006 Friedman was a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry. He and Rose lived at Sea Ranch, CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry, from 1979 to about 2001, and then moved to an apartment in San Francisco.⁠[6][1]

In January 1980 the ten-part television series “Free to Choose,” presented by Friedman, began airing on PBS; the companion book, written with Rose D. Friedman, was published the same year by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.⁠[1][6]

In 1980 he was an unofficial adviser to Ronald ReaganRonald ReaganRonald Reagan (1911–2004) was an American politician and actor who worked as a radio sports announcer and film actor before serving as governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989.Open the full entry’s campaign, and in 1981 he was named to the President’s Economic Policy Advisory Board. BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry’s summary notes that in the 1980s his ideas were adopted by Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.⁠[1][6][5]

On July 15, 1988, President Ronald Reagan presented Friedman with the National Medal of Science at a White House ceremony, recognizing his theoretical contributions and his application of scientific empirical and statistical methods to economics, the social sciences and problems of national concern; he was then a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution.⁠[7]

On October 17, 1988, Reagan presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House to eight recipients, including Friedman, whose citation read: “Teacher, scholar, and theorist -- Milton Friedman restored common sense to the world of economics.”⁠[8]

In 1996 the Friedmans established the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation to promote parental choice in schooling through vouchers. In 1998 the University of Chicago Press published their joint memoirs, “Two Lucky People.”⁠[1][6]

Friedman died in San Francisco, California, on November 16, 2006.⁠[2][1]

Friedman’s major works include “A Theory of the Consumption Function” (1957), “Capitalism and Freedom” (1962), written with Rose D. Friedman, “A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960” (1963), written with the economist Anna Schwartz, and “Monetary Trends in the United States and the United Kingdom,” the last major product of his work with Anna J. Schwartz; in 1992 he published “Money Mischief,” a collection of pieces on monetary history.⁠[5][6][1]

Columbia University’s profile quotes him: “History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.”⁠[4]

Friedman served as president of the American Economic Association and of the Mont Pelerin Society, and in 1987 he was inducted into the Rutgers University Hall of Distinguished Alumni.⁠[3][6]

Columbia University’s profile judges that his ideas gained national attention in the 1970s, when stagflation challenged postwar Keynesian policies, notes that he advised Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and states that his views on Social Security privatization, welfare reform and school vouchers became part of the national debate.⁠[4]

Hoover Institution: Official website: https://www.hoover.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[6]