Ben Spies-Butcher teaches Economy and Society in the Macquarie School of Social Sciences. He is co-director of the Australian Basic Income Lab, a collaboration between the Macquarie School of Social Sciences, the School of Social and Political Science at Sydney University and the Crawford School at ANU.

Ben completed his PhD in Economics at the University of Sydney while working in the non-government sector on issues of human rights. His research focuses on the political economy of social policy and the welfare state, particularly how economic and political change shape social policy and housing finance. His current research explores how financial logics common in the private sector are reshaping social policy through changes in public sector budgeting, and the potential for these changes to open new opportunities for egalitarian social provision.

Ben is an Area Editor for the Economic and Labour Relations Review, on the editorial collective for the Journal of Australian Political Economy, and was the 2017 Glenda Powell National Travelling Fellow for the Australian Association of Gerontology. Ben's most recent, forthcoming book is Politics, Inequality and the Australian Welfare State After Liberalisation with Anthem Press.