 Abraham holds a bachelor of science degree in economics from Iowa State University (1976) and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University (1982).She was an assistant professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management and a research associate at the Brookings Institution before joining the faculty at the University of Maryland in 1988.During her time as commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Abraham laid the groundwork for the American Time Use Survey, the first U.S. government survey of time use, and established the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee.