Milton Friedman was born July 31, 1912 in Brooklyn, NY. He graduated from Rutgers in 1932 and did his economics graduate work at the University of Chicago where he got a Master of Arts degree in 1933.

Eventually he moved to Washington, D.C. and worked as an economist for the federal government including the National Resources Planning Board and later the National Bureau of Economic Research working with Simon Kuznets. External After a very brief stint at University of Wisconsin—Madison went back to Washington to work on tax policy at the Treasury Department. After the work he left to go to the University of Chicago to teach economics—the Chicago school—a job he held until he retired in 1977. He was a Fulbright Visiting Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and economic adviser to Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. Later he served as an adviser to President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

He received many awards and recognitions including the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory. But, for additional information about Friedman's life, please see the list of key events in his life on the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation web site. External