Elizabeth Wilkins
Former Chief of Staff to the Chair, Federal Trade Commission
Washington, DC
Experience
- Federal Trade Commission
- White House (Biden and Obama administrations)
- D.C. Attorney General
Expertise
- Antitrust and competition
- Labor and workforce policy
- Monopolies and anti-competitive business practices
Education
- Yale University, J.D., B.A.
Recent Coverage
MAR 8, 2023
ABC News | FTC’s new rule could end noncompete agreements for millions of workers
FTC Director of Policy Planning Elizabeth Wilkins said the rule would boost wages and promote competition by allowing workers to move more freely between jobs, pointing to the widespread use of the agreements in low-wage service industries.
“People think this is about folks in the boardroom, but it’s not,” she said. “It’s also about hairstylists. It’s about security guards. It’s about journalists. People all across the income spectrum, all kinds of job descriptions have noncompetes.”
JAN 6, 2023
Marketplace | The FTC moves to ban non-compete clauses
The FTC estimates 1 in 5 Americans work under non-compete clauses that cost them up to $300 billion in lost wages. “It can be a real problem for folks who are looking to find a job with a better wage, with better health care benefits, more flexibility for their families,” says Elizabeth Wilkins, who directs the FTC’s Office of Policy Planning.
The proposed rule would nullify all existing non-compete clauses and ban them for future employees and independent contractors. Wilkins says that would also benefit consumers because “non-competes hamper innovation by restricting the flow of knowledge across competitors.”
AUG 1, 2022
Washingtonian | Elizabeth Wilkins Could Probably Work Anywhere. Why the FTC?
Elizabeth Wilkins has the kind of credentials that could take her anywhere in DC: degrees from Sidwell Friends and Yale Law School, clerkships with Elena Kagan and Merrick Garland, a stint as senior adviser to White House chief of staff Ron Klain. But during the first year of the Biden presidency, as Wilkins watched the new administration take shape, one particular agency struck her as “the most exciting place” to tackle economic injustice: the Federal Trade Commission.
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About Elizabeth
Elizabeth Wilkins was the Chief of Staff to the Chair and Director of the Office of Policy and Planning. Before joining the FTC, Wilkins served as Senior Advisor to the White House Chief of Staff. Prior to that, she worked in several senior leadership roles at the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, including Senior Counsel for Policy and Chief of Staff. Wilkins also previously served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Elena Kagan of the U.S. Supreme Court, and to then-Chief Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Before law school, Wilkins was a policy advisor in the White House Domestic Policy Council. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School.
