After his graduation from Columbia in 1933, Perlo went to work as a statistical analyst and assistant to a division chief at the National Recovery Administration (NRA), remaining at that post until June 1935.
[1] In October 1937, Perlo left government service to work in the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank established in 1916, where he stayed as a researcher for more than two years.
[1] There Perlo engaged in the study of inflationary pressures in the American economy, particularly with the advent of World War II, which helped provide documentation enabling the institution of price controls.
[1] During his time in the federal bureaucracy, Perlo was a contributor to the Communist Party's press, submitting articles on economic matters under a variety of pseudonyms.
He transferred to the Division of Monetary Research, and served under Harry Dexter White, followed by Frank Coe and Harold Glasser, all of whom were later alleged to be Soviet agents.
[citation needed] In 1948, Perlo obtained a position as an economist for the Progressive Party, assisting the Presidential campaign of former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and Vice President Henry Wallace.
[9] Following the publication of his book Economics of Racism, Victor Perlo received the Myers Center award for his exceptional work on intolerance in North America.