Portrait of Richard D. Wolff

Birthday profile

Richard D. Wolff

Richard D. Wolff, American economist and academic

Born
April 1, 1942
Age in 2026
84
Zodiac sign
Aries
Birth year
1942

About Richard D. Wolff

Richard David Wolff (born April 1, 1942) is an American Marxian economist known for his work on economic methodology and class analysis. He is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor in the graduate program in international affairs at The New School. Wolff has also taught economics at Yale University, City College of New York, University of Utah, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, and The Brecht Forum in New York City. In 1988, Wolff co-founded the journal Rethinking Marxism. He made the 2009 documentary Capitalism Hits the Fan. In 2012, he released three new books: Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism, with David Barsamian; Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian, with Stephen Resnick; and Democracy at Work. In 2019, he released his book Understanding Marxism. Wolff hosts the weekly 30-minute-long program Economic Update, produced by the non-profit Democracy at Work, which he co-founded. Economic Update is on YouTube, Free Speech TV, Pacifica Radio stations (WBAI-FM, New York; KPFA-FM, Berkeley; KPFK-FM, Los Angeles), and CUNY TV (WNYE-DT3) in New York. The program is also available as a podcast. Wolff is featured regularly in television, print, and internet media. He is considered by a number of media outlets to be influential in the field of Marxian economics, and The New York Times Magazine has named him "America's most prominent Marxist economist". In 1988, Wolff co-founded Rethinking Marxism, a journal dedicated to exploring Marxian concepts in economics and social sciences. In an interview on The Jimmy Dore Show in January 2021, Wolff stated that he is a distant relative of the German political activist Wilhelm Wolff, to whom the first volume of Karl Marx's Das Kapital was dedicated.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Richard D. Wolff timeline

  1. In 1988, Wolff co-founded Rethinking Marxism, a journal dedicated to exploring Marxian concepts in economics and social sciences.
  2. In an interview on The Jimmy Dore Show in January 2021, Wolff stated that he is a distant relative of the German political activist Wilhelm Wolff, to whom the first volume of Karl Marx's Das Kapital was dedicated.

The world when Richard D. Wolff was born

Richard D. Wolff was born in 1942. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1942

  • #1 song"White Christmas" – Bing Crosby
  • Top movieCasablanca
  • Best-selling bookThe Song of Bernadette – Franz Werfel

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst Negro League World Series
  • Top headlineBattle of Midway becomes turning point of WWII in the Pacific
  • Technology milestoneEnrico Fermi achieves first nuclear chain reaction
  • Defining fadRationing and war bonds
  • Notable inventionNapalm
  • World population2.35 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population134.9M

1942 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Richard D. Wolff's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19422026
Gas$0.20$3.45/gal
Average home$5,600$435,000
Average income$3,800$67,500
Minimum wage$0.30$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.27$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population134.9M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.