Abby M. McCloskey is founder and principal of McCloskey Policy LLC, a research and consulting firm serving business and political leaders across the country. She is a columnist for the Dallas Morning News and host of the Beyond Talking Points podcast.

McCloskey directs the Convergence Collaborative on Supports for Working Families, bringing together ideologically diverse family policy leaders across sectors for a multi-year effort to better support families. This builds on her work with the bipartisan AEI-Brookings Working Group on Paid Leave. She is an Impact Leader for Politico’s Women Rule Exchange.

McCloskey has served as the domestic policy director on multiple presidential campaigns. Most recently, McCloskey was policy director for Howard Schultz’ 2020 exploratory presidential bid as an independent.  Previously,  she served as policy director for Governor Rick Perry's 2016 presidential campaign and an economic advisor to Governor Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign.  She was the Program Director of Economic Policy at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington DC; the Director of Research at the Financial Services Roundtable; a staffer for U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), and; a policy associate with the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.  

McCloskey is widely published, with her work featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, National Affairs, Politico, The Dispatch, The Hill, Forbes, National Review and others. McCloskey has testified about her research about child care, paid leave, and banking regulation before the U.S. Congress.

McCloskey holds an M.S. in Applied Economics from Johns Hopkins University. She lives with her husband, three children, and golden retriever in Texas. In her spare time, she edits spy novels.

“In the lead essay of National Affairs, Abby M. McCloskey notes that the family you are born into and the neighborhood you live in have a much stronger influence on your socioeconomic outcome than any other factors. Her essay is an outstanding compendium of proposals designed to strengthen family and neighborhood…These proposals are activist but humble. It’s not the federal government centrally deciding how to remake your community. It’s giving communities and people the resources to take responsibility and assume power for themselves.” — David Brooks, New York Times, February 11, 2019

Watch Abby make the case for conservatives to support paid parental leave at the AEI-Brookings Joint Working Group Conference, June 2017