The American Prospect is a publication that promotes left-of-center public policy through articles on its website and in print. Founded in 1989 by Robert Kuttner, Paul Starr, and former Clinton administration Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, the Prospect has received grants from a number of left-of-center organizations, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, William and Florda Hewlett Foundation, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. ¹

History

Founded in 1989 following the Democratic Party’s loss of three successive presidential elections, the American Prospect was created with the intention of restoring “plausibility and persuasiveness to American liberalism” by addressing national economic and social policy issues. ²

The Prospect was created with help from a group of founding sponsors including Michael Weinstein, a Nobel-winning economist;³ Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and president emerita of the Children’s Defense Fund;⁴ Shirley Williams, a prominent left-wing politician in the United Kingdom;⁵ and John Kenneth Galbraith, an economist and adviser to President John Kennedy who also worked as president of the left-of-center Americans for Democratic Action. ⁶

The first issue of the Prospect appeared in spring 1990 and intended to contribute to “the creation of a durable liberal majority.” Beginning as a quarterly magazine, the publication started with a paid circulation of 2,700. By 1999, it claimed that circulation had reached more than 24,000 subscribers. ² An early adopter of electronic journalism, the magazine launched a website in 1994 that highlighted pieces from the print magazine, published online articles responding to breaking news, and hosted a group blog called “Tapped.” ² The Prospect’s print circulation continued to grow, and the magazine adjusted publishing to accommodate a biweekly magazine that later became a monthly magazine. ² Today, the Prospect publishes six issues a year, in addition to maintaining its website. ⁷

The Prospect claims that its online audience has grown significantly between 2019 and 2020. In April 2019, the Prospect reported receiving about 97,000 online users each week, a figure that the Prospect claims more than doubled the following year. ⁸

The Prospect has served as a starting point for the careers of a number of prominent left-of-center journalists. One of the Prospect’s first managing editors, David Callahan, created Inside Philanthropy, while the other, Jonathan Cohn, become a senior national correspondent at HuffPost. ² Other Prospect alumni include The Atlantic editor Scott Stossel, GEN by Medium executive editor Garance Franke-Ruta, Bloomberg Businessweek national correspondent Joshua Green,² The Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer, Vox editor Kay Steiger, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie, and Vox co-founders Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias. ⁹

On February 10, 2025, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect Robert Kuttner published an article for the magazine titled “What Trump Could Learn From Hitler on NIH Funding” with a sub-heading reading “Even the Führer knew to support German science, and not just for war. Why is Trump trying to destroy America’s great research universities?” ¹⁰ In the article, Kuttner accused President Donald Trump and technology entrepreneur Elon Musk of efforts to allegedly cut funding for federal agencies including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well as the National Science Foundation (NSF). He later claimed in the article that “Even Hitler did not trash German science.” ¹⁰ A portion of his article stated:

“Hitler did seek to turn science to his own ends, to promote research on eugenics, new technologies for blitzkrieg war, sick medical experiments, and more efficient ways for the mass killing of Jews. Yet civilian German science, long a mark of German pride, also thrived. During the Nazi era, German scientists and engineers invented the first electron microscope, industrial-scale production of artificial fiber, pharmaceuticals such as advanced sulfa drugs, artificial rubber, and much more. Trump, in short, is even more nihilist than Hitler.” ¹⁰

Political Stances

In January 2024, the American Prospect claimed that the rise of companies like Uber was due to the “underinvestment” in public services and instead advocated more spending on things such as mass transit. ¹¹

In May 2024, the Prospect published an article claiming that the real technological innovation was in weather-dependent energy. The article claimed that weather-dependent energy such as solar and wind increasingly replaced conventional energy sources and the research behind them provided a path toward the nation’s innovation. ¹²

In August 2024, the American Prospect’s managing editor Ryan Cooper published an article calling for a “pragmatic socialism.” Cooper called for expanding labor unions and enacting sectoral bargaining which negotiates labor contracts across an entire industry sector, expanding the welfare state and sending more money to nonworkers, enact single-payer healthcare, expanding the regulatory state, raising taxes, and possibly even considering nationalizing some private property. Cooper suggested that the time to pass these radical reforms was when the economy was in terrible shape such as during the Great Depression. ¹³

In September 2024, the American Prospect praised the push for government-run banking in Rochester, New York. The article quoted an advocate who claimed, “Public banking is a tool for broader racial and economic justice, rather than an end in itself.” ¹⁴

In October 2024, the American Prospect alleged that Republicans’ push for school choice would destroy public schools, bloat stage budgets, and harm the academic achievement of students. The article also argued that school choice programs would exacerbate income inequality because wealthier families would be the ones who take advantage of the programs. ¹⁵

In December 2024, American Prospect co-founder and co-editor Robert Kuttner called for Democrats to run against the modern American economic system which he called “corrupted capitalism.” He said Democrats should model themselves on U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) because they knew how to explain the economy. ¹⁶

In January 2025, the American Prospect published a proposal on how to cut or increase revenue by $2 trillion in the federal budget, but the author recommended not actually going through with it because it would trigger a deep recession. The proposals included cutting Medicare Advantage, cutting doctor pay, raising taxes, cutting defense spending, and enacting price controls on prescription drugs. ¹⁷

In January 2025, the American Prospect published an article attacking the push for “portable benefits” which would provide benefits for workers without tying them to an employer. The article attacked the proposals as a way for app-based rideshare and delivery companies to continue to “misclassify” their workers as independent contractors instead of employees. The article claimed that the app-based companies were looking for a legal shield to avoid classifying their workers as employees and that this proposed legislation would do just that. The article also claimed that portable benefits could undermine the funding for programs like Social Security because the app-based companies did not pay into it. ¹⁸

In February 2025, the American Prospect speculated that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would privatize the Veterans Administration because he was friends with healthcare company executives on Venmo. The article also speculated that Hegseth would be more willing to award defense contracts to Silicon Valley-based defense startups because some of those people were his Venmo friends. ¹⁹

In February 2025, the American Prospect’s co-founder and co-editor Robert Kuttner compared the mass firings and government restructuring under President Donald Trump to Nazi Germany. Kuttner claimed that if Trump was successful in his takeover of the federal government that “we are headed for full-on fascism, in which a dictatorial regime can operate by whim, with no legal restraints.” ²⁰

In February 2025, the American Prospect published a piece criticizing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for issuing a “stop work” order at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which would, among other activities, limit the way the agency could regulate Elon Musk’s plans to turn Twitter into an “everything” app which would provide some financial services. ²¹

In February 2025, the American Prospect published a piece criticizing the Office of the Attending Physician (OAP), is a Navy-run medical service responsible for providing health care to members of the U.S. Congress on the grounds of Capitol Hill. The article denounced Congress for being secretive about the care provided by OAP, for OAP services being very cheap for members of Congress, and for providing healthcare with less bureaucracy than those with Medicare and Medicaid. The article also complained that OAP cared for members of Congress, “some of whom have voted to slash Medicare and Medicaid and abolish the Affordable Care Act, potentially taking coverage away from tens of millions of Americans.” The article also claimed that Congressmembers were concealing how unhealthy and unfit members of Congress are by not being forthcoming with on what OAP spent money. ²²

In February 2025, the American Prospect published a piece attacking House Republicans for proposing a budget blueprint which would pay for tax cuts by cutting spending. The article claimed, “Republicans want to take food and medicine away from poor people and give that money to billionaires instead.” ²³

In February 2025, the American Prospect published a piece about how illegal immigrant day workers were working in Los Angeles to help rebuild the city after wildfires destroyed sections of the city. The article featured a sympathetic profile of illegal immigrant day workers who were continuing to seek work in the Los Angeles area despite a federal immigration crackdown. The piece also praised California’s sanctuary laws for remove the threat of having local law enforcement cooperate with federal immigration authorities, but it also bemoaned the lack of sanctuary laws in places like Texas. ²⁴

In February 2025, the American Prospect published a piece denouncing the music industry with a focus on music executive Jeff Rabhan, who criticized pop star Chappell Roan for calling for record labels to pay developing artists more and give them health care benefits in an awards acceptance speech. The article not only focused on Rabhan’s criticisms of Roan but also attacked Rabhan’s support of Israel and referred to Palestinian nationalist supporters as “anti-genocide” activists. The article also denounced the lack of competition in the music industry by pointing out how consolidated the industry is. The article also praised Roan’s left-wing views, including on immigration issues and her pro-Palestinian stances. ²⁵

In February 2025, American Prospect managing editor Ryan Cooper published an article denouncing proposed reforms to Delaware’s corporate laws as giving Elon Musk $55 billion, which is what Musk would have received in a pay package from Tesla had a Delaware judge allowed the package to go through. Cooper attacked Musk for his role in the second Trump administration and said, “giving this guy $55 billion” “borders on treason.” Cooper denounced the legislation for making it easier for corporate CEOs to loot pension funds, harm workers and small shareholders, and making this yet another attempt by Delaware to please corporate America. Cooper described Delaware’s attractiveness to corporations as a “race to the bottom.” ²⁶

In February 2025, the American Prospect alleged that Society of Utility and Regulatory Financial Analysts (SURFA) produced models which allowed utility companies to charge more for electricity. The report’s author also demanded more government-owned utility companies on the assumption that they would charge less. ²⁷

Finance

The Prospect’s tax returns for 2018 reported total revenue of over $1.2 million and expenses of over $1.4 million. The previous year, the Prospect reported total revenue almost twice that of 2018, coming in at just over $2.4 million. ²⁸ In 2015 and 2016, the Prospect reported about $1.9 and $1.7 million in total revenue each year, respectively. ²⁹

In 2023, Prospect reported  $1,548,270 in revenue, $1,809,282 in expenses, and $205,409 in net assets. ³⁰

The Prospect has received grants from various organizations over the years, including $25,000 each year from 2017 to 2019 from the Bauman Foundation, a left-of-center foundation with ties to the Democracy Alliance. ³¹

In 2019, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund supplied a $50,000 grant for a “Green New Deal Edition” of the Prospect magazine and an additional $50,000 grant in 2020 for added content on the Green New Deal, left-of-center legislation supported by radical environmentalist groups. ³² In 2018, the Hewlett Foundation provided a $150,000 grant for a series of articles on neoliberalism. ³³

The left-of-center Surdna Foundation awarded the Prospect a $125,000 grant for general operating support in 2017,³⁴ and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, one of the largest private foundations in the United States, provided $375,000 for general operating support between 2013 and 2015. ¹ In 2013, the Chorus Foundation granted $15,000 for the promotion and digital release of “The Shale Rebellion,” an article against fracking in the United States. ³⁵ In 2004, the Carnegie Corporation granted $50,000 to the Prospect, and the corporation granted an additional $25,000 in 2008. ³²

Leadership

The Prospect was founded by Robert Reich, Robert Kuttner, and Paul Starr. After co-founding the Prospect, Reich served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. He co-founded Inequality Media Civic Action, a left-leaning digital media company, and is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Reich is also the chairman of Common Cause, a left-of-center advocacy group focused on advancing left-of-center policies. ³⁶

Kuttner is a co-founder and co-editor of the Prospect and is a professor at Brandeis University. ³⁷ He also co-founded the Economic Policy Institute, a left-of-center research institute supported by labor unions. ³⁸

Starr is the author of eight books and is the co-founder and co-editor of the Prospect. He is also a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University. ³⁹

1. “The American Prospect 2013-2015 Gen. Operating Support.” W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Accessed February 21, 2021. https://www.wkkf.org/grants/grant/2013/06/the-american-Prospect-2013-2015-gen-operating-support-p3023648.
2. Starr, Paul, and Robert Kuttner. “Little Magazine, Big Ideas: The American Prospect at 25.” The American Prospect, May 12, 2015. https://Prospect.org/culture/little-magazine-big-ideas-american-Prospect-25/.
3. Weinstein, Michael. “Kenneth Arrow, Nobel-Winning Economist Whose Influence Spanned Decades, Dies at 95.” The New York Times. The New York Times, February 22, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/business/economy/kenneth-arrow-dead-nobel-laureate-in-economics.html.
4. “Marian Wright Edelman.” Children’s Defense Fund. Accessed February 21, 2021. https://www.childrensdefense.org/staff/marian-wright-edelman/.
5. “Shirley Williams.” Somerville College Oxford. Accessed February 21, 2021. https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/about-somerville/somerville-stories/shirley-williams/.
6. “John Kenneth Galbraith.” Econlib. Accessed February 21, 2021. https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Galbraith.html.
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8. Zimmerman, Steph. “How the American Prospect Grew Its Revenue and Site Traffic Without Losing Sight of Its Mission.” metropublisher.com, October 12, 2020. https://www.metropublisher.com/news/how-the-american-prospect-grew-its-revenue-and-site-traffic-/
9. Tanzer, Myles. “American Prospect Mass Exodus Begins.” BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed, June 2, 2014. https://www.buzzfeed.com/mylestanzer/american-Prospect-mass-exodus-begins.
10. Kuttner, Robert. “What Trump Could Learn From Hitler on NIH Funding.” American Prospect, February 10, 2025. https://prospect.org/politics/2025-02-10-what-trump-could-learn-from-hitler-on-nih-funding/
11. Vaheesan, Sandeep. “Uber and the Impoverished Public Expectations of the 2010s.” The American Prospect, January 16, 2024. https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-01-16-uber-impoverished-public-expectations-review/.
12. Cooper, Ryan. “The Green-Energy Revolution Shows What Real Innovation Looks Like.” The American Prospect, May 30, 2024. https://prospect.org/environment/2024-05-30-green-energy-revolution-real-innovation/.
13.  Cooper, Ryan. “The Case for Pragmatic Socialism.” The American Prospect, August 5, 2024. https://prospect.org/politics/2024-08-05-case-for-pragmatic-socialism/.
14. Garcia, Yunior Rivas. “The Push for Public Banking in New York.” The American Prospect, September 4, 2024. https://prospect.org/economy/2024-09-04-push-for-public-banking-new-york/
15.  Berkshire, Jennifer C. “Breaking the Public Schools.” The American Prospect, October 11, 2024. https://prospect.org/education/2024-10-11-breaking-public-schools/.
16. Kuttner, Robert. “Rapacious Capitalism and Upside-down Politics.” The American Prospect, December 10, 2024. https://prospect.org/economy/2024-12-10-rapacious-capitalism-upside-down-politics-UHC-CEO/.
17. Dayen, David. “We Found the $2 Trillion.” The American Prospect, January 27, 2025. https://prospect.org/economy/2025-01-27-we-found-the-2-trillion-elon-musk-doge/.
18. Goldstein, Luke. “The ‘pro-Worker’ Portable Benefits Scam.” The American Prospect, January 31, 2025. https://prospect.org/labor/2025-01-31-pro-worker-portable-benefits-scam/
19. Boguslaw, Daniel, and Luke Goldstein. “Pete Hegseth’s Venmo: Defense Contractors, UnitedHealth Execs, Fox, and Friends.” The American Prospect, February 5, 2025. https://prospect.org/politics/2025-02-05-pete-hegseths-venmo-defense-contractors-unitedhealth/.
20. Kuttner, Robert. “Will the Republic Strike Back?” The American Prospect, February 4, 2025. https://prospect.org/politics/2025-02-04-will-the-republic-strike-back/.
21. Dayen, David. “Bessent Gives Musk a Present, Stalling CFPB Oversight of Big Tech.” The American Prospect, February 7, 2025. https://prospect.org/economy/2025-02-07-bessent-gives-musk-present-stalling-cfpb-oversight-big-tech/.
22.  Boguslaw, Daniel. “Aging Members of Congress Refuse to Disclose Details of Their Top Secret Hospital.” The American Prospect, February 12, 2025. https://prospect.org/health/2025-02-12-aging-members-congress-office-of-the-attending-physician/.
23. Dayen, David. “House Releases Reverse Robin Hood Resolution.” The American Prospect, February 12, 2025. https://prospect.org/politics/2025-02-12-house-releases-reverse-robin-hood-resolution/.
24. Beaumont, Hilary. “Undocumented Workers Prepare to Clean up L.A.’s Fires amid Ice Raids.” The American Prospect, February 18, 2025. https://prospect.org/labor/2025-02-18-undocumented-workers-clean-up-la-fires-ice-raids/.
25. Carlson, Melanie, and Maureen Tkacik. “Your Kink Is Health Care? Good Luck, Babe.” The American Prospect, February 20, 2025. https://prospect.org/culture/2025-02-20-your-kink-is-health-care-good-luck-babe/.
26. Cooper, Ryan. “Why Are Delaware Democrats Trying to Give Elon Musk $55 Billion?” The American Prospect, February 21, 2025. https://prospect.org/justice/2025-02-21-why-delaware-democrats-trying-to-give-elon-musk-55-billion/.
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29. The American Prospect, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990), 2016
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33. “American Prospect – for a Series of Articles on Neoliberalism.” Hewlett Foundation. Accessed February 21, 2021. https://hewlett.org/grants/american-Prospect-for-a-series-of-articles-on-neoliberalism/.
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35. “The American Prospect.” Chorus Foundation. Accessed February 21, 2021. https://chorusfoundation.org/what-we-fund/the-american-Prospect/.
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39. “Paul Starr.” The American Prospect. Accessed February 21, 2021. https://Prospect.org/topics/paul-starr/.