Remembering Policy Matters partner Rick McHugh

Rick McHugh, who passed away on Christmas Eve, was instrumental in Policy Matters Ohio’s work defending and improving our unemployment compensation system and supporting workers’ rights. As a staffer at the National Employment Law Project (NELP), he filled us in on how the UC system worked for one of our very first reports in 2001, and that was just the beginning of a long collaboration, one of many he fostered. Michele Evermore of the National Academy of Social Insurance aptly put it: “So many people made it through the worst parts of their lives because of him, and they’ll never know it.”

Rick, as a UAW lawyer and then at NELP, was the leading authority on Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a federal program that despite major inadequacies was the main attempt to provide aid to workers who lost their jobs due to trade. Barney Oursler of the Mon Valley Unemployed Committee in Pennsylvania noted that, “Rick started working with the Mon Valley Unemployed Committee when we were fighting for Trade Act benefits during the 80’s destruction of our region’s industry. Rick brought the political lobbying of his union to support legislation that won real retraining benefits for tens of thousands for unemployed workers in our region and nationwide.”

He continued: “Rick bridged the gap between advocacy organizations and the national power of the UAW and other unions fighting for UC extensions, Trade Act benefits and much more. He could bring us together because he worked directly with workers seeking benefits. His advocacy life came from that experience. He understood workers, the legal system and the union world. And I knew him as a very analytical but warm and caring person.”

Here are some additional reflections on Rick from some of those who knew him:

Ross Eisenbrey: [From remarks at a celebration of life for Rick McHugh, Jan. 17, 2026.] You all knew one side or another of Rick and many of you knew multiple sides of him — his politics, his legal career, his love of sports and trout fishing, his love of jazz and the Grateful Dead.

I want to make sure everyone knows that Rick, through hard work and dedication, became one of the very few national experts on the unemployment insurance system and perhaps the single most knowledgeable person in the United States about Trade Adjustment Assistance, a program that over the years put billions of dollars in the hands of workers who lost their jobs because of our country’s misguided [economic and] trade policies.

Rick litigated, he advocated, he lobbied, he jawboned — he did everything he could, first at the UAW and then at the National Employment Law Project, to make those programs robust and effective, thereby helping literally millions of workers and their families survive tough times.

You also might not have known about his love of poetry or his special appreciation of Philip Levine, a working class poet who grew up in Detroit, and who started working the night shift in an auto factory at 14, and who somehow got into Wayne State and a career as a writer and teacher.

Levine eventually won the Pulitzer Prize and was named Poet Laureate of the United States.

Levine isn’t always easy to read. Like Rick, he was a realist. He didn’t kid himself about the social order. He saw exploitation and suffering and racism, and hated it. Like Rick, he was anti-war, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist. He was a small D democrat.

Levine was a voice for the victims because, like Rick, he was a man of strong moral principles and conscience. And he loved to write almost as much as Rick loved to talk.

I’ve chosen to read two Levine poems that aren’t about hard physical labor, or unemployment, or the immigrant experience. I chose them because they remind me of Rick – including his sense of humor.

Philosophy Lesson
After driving all night long
I stopped for coffee and eggs
at a diner halfway to
New York City. The waitress
behind the counter looked up
from her magazine and said,
“Look who’s here!” clapped her hands
together and broke into
a huge smile. “Have I been here
before?” I asked. “Beats the shit
out of me,” she said and put
a glass of cloudy water
in front of me. “What’ll it be?”
One war was closing down
in Asia to be followed
by another. No longer
a kid, I wondered who was
I that a gray-haired woman
up all night in a road-side
hole would greet me like a star.
“What do you think of Sartre
and the Existentialists?”
I asked. “We get the eggs fresh
from down the road, my old man
bakes the bread and sweet rolls.
It’s all good.” It’s not often
you get the perfect answer
to such a profound question.
On the way back to the truck
I listened to the pebbles
crunching under my wing-tips,
watched two huge crows watching me
from a sad maple, smelled
the fishy air blowing in
from Lake Erie, and thought, “Some
things are too good to be true.”

The Secret
Somewhere the sea deepens
from blue to black, somewhere
a chemical dusk purples
the western sky, and the earth
sighs as it enters again
he old voyage toward morning.
In my backyard a square
marked by forget-me-nots,
lobelias, a lilac braced
in the aftermath of day.
The two surviving quail bark
from under the gnarled orange.
One month ago today
we dug your resting place
and dropped dust, dirt, ashes, no-
thing into the hole and bowed
under the full sun. You weren’t
there as you’re not in this haze,
nor in the first evening breeze.
You’re not in the blackened loam
my wife prepared, nor in
the vast tent of sky stretched
above this valley, nor in
my words stumbling toward closure.
When you lived the secret
was yourself. You gave away
hours, days, years, 94 in all,
but never that. Your secret
is safe tonight. The earth turns
toward darkness, and the earth
asks nothing. The watching stars
shed what light they can, the moon
—with all its distant power—
rides out the darkness. Your sea,
a mountain range away, calmed,
enters a safe haven
that will last a single night.
The quail quiet at last. We
are one, sharing whatever
you are as blindness descends.

Katrina Cassell: I had the privilege of interviewing Rick McHugh as an overzealous 15-year-old doing a school history project on the Flint Sit-Down Strike. Rick drove to meet me in Ann Arbor, and devoted the better part of a day to answering all of my questions and more – patiently and thoughtfully helping me to understand the strike’s historical and political context and its impact for the UAW, and gently filling me in on some knowledge that should definitely have been prerequisite (what exactly was the New Deal?). I remember his kindness, his generosity, and most of all the seriousness with which he treated my particular scholarly inquiry. He passionately affirmed my young belief that studying the history of workers and their struggle was a worthwhile political endeavor, an idea I try my best to proliferate as a middle school history teacher. Undoubtedly, I am one of countless people on whom Rick McHugh and his work had a profound and meaningful impact. 

Lucy Williams: In 1993, after I joined the faculty of Northeastern University Law School, Monica Halas of Greater Boston Legal Services and Rick and Maurice Emsellem of NELP recruited me and asked if they could nominate me to the National 11-person Advisory Council on Unemployment Compensation (ACUC), a body set up to evaluate and recommend improvements to the UI program. Through various means that they used, President Bill Clinton appointed me and I served until 1996. During that time, Rick and Maurice met with me on a regular basis for them to patiently educate me and for us to brainstorm on how to approach the ACUC issues and meetings. The ACUC was a quite diverse organization with representatives from all political perspectives and this is where I saw a different side of Rick.

Rick was not only a genius when it came to UI, but he was also extremely nuanced in how to present and politically market the important changes that would benefit workers. Many of his ideas and recommendations were included in the ACUC’s 1995 Report, “Unemployment Insurance in the United States:  Benefits, Financing, and Coverage,” and 1996 Report, “Defining Federal and State Roles in Unemployment Insurance,” presented to Congress and the President and later adopted into law through statutes or DOL regulations.

Rick, you are not gone. Your legacy is still here.

Dean Baker: I first met Rick McHugh in the summer of 1986. I had just won the Democratic primary for Michigan’s 2^nd Congressional district.

The campaign was an outgrowth of a huge Central America solidarity group that had grown up in Ann Arbor. We wanted someone to challenge our Republican Congressman, who had switched from being a moderate in the 1970s to being a hardcore Reaganite after redistricting made the district far more right-wing.

Ann Arbor was slightly Democratic, but only a quarter of the district. The rest was solidly Republican. Our congressman won the 1984 election with 70% of the vote.

Anyhow, we felt it was important to challenge the guy in 1986 to give him a bad time over his support of Reagan’s wars in Central America. When everyone else working with our group backed down, I got the job. We surprised everyone by winning the Democratic primary over the party backed candidate. This was when Rick called.

He told me that he was a lawyer with the UAW and that he could help me get labor support. This was very true.

At the time Michigan’s labor movement still had many hardcore anti-communist types left over from the 40s and 50s. Rick was great in opening doors and helping me talk to people who might never otherwise have given me a hearing. We still lost but managed to get 41% of the vote. That got the district on the list of contestable districts for the next election.

I always valued Rick’s opinion. He was both knowledgeable and thoughtful. He never felt the need to criticize just for the hell of it. If he raised an issue, I knew it was real.

Andrew Stettner: After a day at one of those long national unemployment insurance meetings, Rick insisted that we stop by a local independent book store so he could find his favorite book of poetry. I was a little surprised because Rick presented as a serious, buttoned up Midwestern type.  I mean, during one team “icebreaker” he proudly said his favorite ice cream flavor was vanilla. In fact, Rick was one of the most intellectually curious, ethically honest, and caring person to friends, colleagues, and family that I had ever met. The world is so much more for him being in it.

Maurice Emsellem: When I joined NELP in 1990 as one of only two staff attorneys at that time, one of my first calls was to Rick at the UAW, who responded with total enthusiasm — like he had over his whole career with so many other aspiring young advocates — and taught me everything about the UI program.  

My very first assignment at NELP was to lead a national UI training of Legal Services advocates, and Rick generously helped me develop an outline of the leading court decisions and federal regulations, which were totally new to me.  But Rick was, of course, intimately familiar with every piece of UI litigation and federal policy.  And by the time we finished developing the outline for the training and I was introduced with his help to the inspiring community of Legal Services employment advocates, there was no turning back.  Rick passed on his passion not just for UI law and policy, but also for the vital importance of building a movement of grassroots groups, unions, and advocates to fight for unemployed workers, their families and communities.

In the early 90’s, when NELP was struggling to survive after Legal Services cuts and management struggles, Rick opened doors to the union movement, with key Congressional staff and U.S. Labor Department officials, and with national UI experts, which launched NELP’s national profile fighting for unemployed workers, including multiple recession extensions of UI benefits and the roadmap for reform created by the 1990s Advisory Council on Unemployment Compensation.  I remember feeling incredibly honored back then when Rick sent me an aging 5-volume set of reports issued by the 1980 National Commission on Unemployment Compensation, which for UI nerds like us, was the ultimate expression of a mutual bond for our work together.

Rick has left a huge legacy, not just on the countless number of unemployed families who navigated hard times with the help of the UI program that he fought to protect, but on a whole community of people across generations who have embraced his life’s mission. 

Monica Halas: I first met Rick at a National Employment Law Project conference in the early 90’s.  He immediately struck me with his deep knowledge of unemployment insurance – policies, court challenges, federal legislative history – he knew it all.  Although he was clearly a policy wonk, he was anything but the stereotype of one. Rick had such a charming and engaging personality, a terrific sense of humor, was so proud of his family, and cared about and was genuinely interested in everyone he met.   

For example, one summer a fishing expedition brought Rick to New England the same time my Hungarian born mother was also visiting us. Rick was so intrigued by my mother’s life story and they instantly bonded.  I’ll never forget how much he charmed her and what a great time we all had together. 

Over the decades, I had the good fortune of getting so much excellent advice from Rick.  I also had the opportunity to work with him directly, along with Andy Stettner, when we co-authored a 2003 briefing for the Massachusetts legislature.  Our focus was on the importance of the Massachusetts unemployment insurance system for working families and needed reforms.  Not only did Rick draw on his deep knowledge of unemployment law, but he also expressed this knowledge in such a clear and persuasive way. His insights have continued to inform legislative advocacy on behalf of low wage workers in Massachusetts to this day.

I know that I speak on behalf of countless unemployment advocates around the country who are so appreciative of all that Rick taught us. His contributions to improving unemployment systems so that they are responsive to the needs of low-wage workers are truly unparalleled.  As a retiree, I have attempted to pass on what I learned from Rick to the amazing folks in the Greater Boston Legal Services Workers’ Rights Unit who are brilliantly carrying on his legacy. 

It is truly a privilege and an honor to have known Rick as a work colleague and as a friend.  In my heart, as for so many others, his work and his memory will endure.

George Wentworth: I was incredibly lucky to work alongside Rick for a decade as part of the legendary Unemployment Insurance team at the National Employment Law Project. Rick was, in fact, one of the main reasons I came to work at NELP in 2009 after retiring from the Connecticut Department of Labor. For years, I would run into Rick at national conferences where his unique blend of worker advocacy skills and scholarship made him a star in the admittedly nerdy world of unemployment insurance experts.  I always looked forward to those panels where Rick would take down a state labor commissioner or other high-ranking bureaucrat with a blunt explanation of how their misinterpretation of federal law was hurting unemployed workers. And I loved it when he followed up with a demand for corrective action. Rick had no problem with a little social friction in pursuit of justice. For Rick, making people uncomfortable was often the cost of progress. Rick was a disrupter before disrupting became a thing.

Rick’s time with the United Autoworkers informed his viewpoint on many things. He staffed UAW president Owen Bieber on a national commission in the first Clinton administration and that commission produced a report that is still regarded today as the ultimate user’s manual for rebuilding the unemployment insurance program. Yet, by the time we worked together at NELP, we spent most of our days warning anyone who would listen how badly the system was deteriorating and how Republican governors and legislatures around the country were sabotaging the promise of the New Deal. Rick was a historian of the social insurance movement. He could talk for hours about FDR and Frances Perkins but he also studied and admired European programs that treated the unemployed with much greater fairness and decency than anything ever considered on this side of the Atlantic.

I don’t think Rick watched a lot of television. But I do. And because it was filled with so many really smart people, I used to think about NELP like the TV series, The West Wing. And in that world, Rick was the character Toby Ziegler. In the show, Toby is the uber-intelligent, highly principled communications director who serves as the moral conscience of the White House. He battles with everyone – friends, coworkers, opponents – on a daily basis, but always in pursuit of doing good. Like Toby Ziegler, Rick was fiercely idealistic but could be cynical and moody too. Like Toby, Rick’s integrity meter was so high, he was often staking out the harder, less politically expedient position. But if you were on his side in the good fight, he was deeply loyal down to the final battle. Like Toby Ziegler, Rick spent a lot of time brooding about the wrongs of the world but kept fighting the fight because he believed in a better, kinder society.

Finally, Rick was as true a Midwesterner as I have ever met. Rick led NELP’s midwestern operations out of Michigan. He might have used his geographical perspective a time or twenty to take issue with directives coming out of the other NELP offices in the urban elite hubs of New York, DC and Oakland. He was always laser-focused on the industrial Midwest and the thousands of manufacturing workers whose American dreams faded when the rules of the global economy were rewritten. Rick left the UAW but it never left him. He believed in a social contract in which everyone worked hard, did their part and earned their fair share in return. He taught that lesson every day of his life. I will always be grateful for having known Rick as a teacher, as a friend, as a brother in arms.

Amy Hanauer: When I started doing economic justice research, there was a cadre of curmudgeonly men a little older than me who seemed to have an incredibly deep understanding of the economy, an air-tight commitment to the underdog, and utter clarity about what we as progressive economic analysts should be doing. Rick McHugh was chief among them. He had homed in on a few components of the safety net – unemployment compensation, health care, food assistance, access to time off – that were core to basic sustenance, and he helped me see that fighting to preserve those essentials wasn’t just part of keeping families out of poverty, but was also key to helping workers organize and build power.

Rick’s research steered the earliest work we published at Policy Matters Ohio, the think tank I helped start, and helped to shape the direction we took as an organization. Over the years I learned a lot from him about policy, but also a surprising amount about other obscure topics. He loved poetry, particularly poetry about working class communities – I think I inadvertently “borrowed” and never returned one Philip Levine book from Rick. We also talked or emailed occasionally about other poets, labor history, worker migration patterns, and more.

When my daughter was in high school doing research on the Flint sit-down strike, she and I drove to Rick’s house so she could interview him about the UAW, the strike, and autoworkers. During that conversation Rick talked about how the strike had galvanized the labor movement. Katrina wasn’t familiar with that word but later told me that she uses it often and thinks of Rick each time. We all have reason to think often of Rick. He was a teacher, an activist lawyer, an advocate, a researcher, a thinker and a contrarian. His work made a difference for some of the most vulnerable people in Detroit and in America. He helped me and many others think differently about the world.

We’re at a dark moment right now in labor history and in history more broadly but when we come out of it, I know that Rick is one of the people who, in one small way, will have galvanized a better future.