Mike Meyers, economics journalist and longtime Star Tribune reporter, dies at 75

Mike Meyers, who for more than two decades educated and entertained Star Tribune readers with incisive economics reporting and commentary, has died. He was 75.

Meyers had a talent for distilling complicated economic issues, often with humorous but riveting opening paragraphs. “He had an unusual combination of talents both as a very penetrating analyst of issues with a kind of fun-loving zest for debate and rhetoric,” said Doug Tice, retired columnist, commentary editor and member of the editorial board at the Star Tribune. Meyers contributed to the newspaper’s Op-Ed pages after he retired as a reporter.

Meyers died on Sept. 29 at a rehabilitation center in Minneapolis. He was recovering from a serious fall in May in which he broke his ankle, said his brother, William Meyers of St. Louis. No funeral is planned, but friends will gather privately to share memories.

Meyers worked at the Star Tribune from 1984 to 2009, first as an economics reporter in Minneapolis, then as the newspaper’s New York correspondent and later as national economics correspondent. He won numerous awards for work that included in-depth reports on agricultural subsidies and financial problems at Northwest Airlines, which merged with Delta Air Lines in 2010.

Meyers became a frequent critic of government subsidies to corporations.

“For decades,” Meyers wrote in a commentary with Art Rolnick, a former Federal Reserve senior vice president, “too many governors and mayors have been captivated by calls for cash from builders of shopping malls, hotels, parking ramps, apartments, condos and office parks. The public takes much of the risk; private owners gather all of the reward.”

Rolnick, now an economist at the University of Minnesota, said he and Meyers became very close. “In the last five years, he was like a brother to me,” he said. “We would talk economics, politics religion, once or twice a week.”

Meyers was born in St. Louis, the son of John and Lucille Meyers. His father worked in the mailroom at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where newspaper sections were bundled. He graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in journalism.

Meyers was hired as a reporter at the Binghamton (N.Y.) Evening Press in 1971. He plunged into the work, covering the economic impact of Hurricane Agnes in 1972 on Elmira, N.Y., which was devastated by flooding. “He got hooked” on covering economics, said Dave Beal, the business editor at the newspaper.

Beal and his wife, Caroline, invited Meyers to their home for Thanksgiving his first year in Binghamton, and they became lifelong friends. “He was kind of crusty, a hard surface but soft inside,” Caroline Beal said.

The Newspaper Guild, the union that represents newspaper workers, attempted to organize the Evening Press, a newspaper in the Gannett chain in 1974. “Mike got very active, and the publisher of the Binghamton paper invited him into his office,” Beal said. After their chat, he recalled, Meyers agreed to go to work at the Gannett paper in Rochester, N.Y., which was already organized by the Guild. Beal later became business editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch. He has since retired.

In 1977, Meyers was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan fellowship at Princeton University; in 1984, the Star Tribune hired him as economics reporter. He was awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 1986. From 1987 to 1991 Meyers was the Star Tribune’s New York correspondent, covering the turbulent financial markets, and writing an occasional feature column called “Fun City Diary.”

In 1991, Meyers became the Star Tribune’s national economics correspondent. He traveled widely in the U.S. and a dozen countries to cover taxes, spending and monetary policy, Gov. Jesse Ventura’s trade mission to Mexico and former Vice President Walter Mondale’s stint as ambassador to Japan.

Although Meyers’ opinion pieces generally had a liberal tilt, he was more than willing to take on both political parties. In 2011, he wrote that President Barack Obama “has adopted some of the most atrocious economic ideas in generations.” He skewered President Donald Trump in 2020 for proposing a $500 billion package of loans and grants to business, comparing it to the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, when “the rich were first to claim the lifeboats” and “the rest were on their own.”

For a time, Meyers was secretary-treasurer of the Newspaper Guild unit at the Star Tribune. “He was for the worker,” said his brother, William. “He was all about their rights and making sure they were well treated.” Meyers was unmarried and would often volunteer to work at the paper on Christmas Day, so reporters with families could have the day off, William Meyers said.

Staff librarian John Wareham contributed to this article.