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Robert Samuelson, Award-Winning Economics Columnist, Dies at 79

NYT > Business > Media · Michael S. Rosenwald · last updated

He was a familiar byline in Newsweek and The Washington Post for decades, explaining the intricacies of economic policy in reader-friendly vernacular.

Robert J. Samuelson, an economics columnist for Newsweek and The Washington Post who explored, in reader-friendly vernacular, the perils of inflation, the fiscal consequences of entitlement spending and the slow-motion crisis of the bulging national debt, died on Saturday in Bethesda, Md. He was 79.

His death, in a hospital, was caused by complications of Parkinson’s disease, his daughter, Ruth Samuelson, said.

With no formal training in economics, Mr. Samuelson viewed himself as an outsider who translated dense but important policy debates for a broad audience.

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