Social economist Georg Rorhlich was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, on January 6, 1914. He attended a modern Gymnasium (1924-1932) and earned a doctorate in jurisprudence at the University of Vienna (1937). He served his probationary period as a criminal court clerk [Assessor] in Vienna, but soon grew dissatisfied with the law. He later asserted that his experiences taught him that the law was powerless to help the chronically impoverished and unemployed and that only broad social security programs could resolve the problems that drove people to embrace Nazism or Communism.

Rohrlich emigrated to the United States in September 1938, Americanized his given name, and worked as an enameler of costume jewelry in New York City. In autumn 1939, he was accepted into Harvard University's newly-established scholarship program for refugees. He earned a doctorate in political economy and government in 1943. Between 1940 and 1944 worked as a researcher for the Social Science Research Council in New York City and for the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C. and as a professor of government and economics at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. He became an American citizen in June 1944, and between September 1944 and 1947 he worked first for the Office of Strategic Services (the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency) and for the Department of State.

Rohrlich's career as a social welfare administrator began in 1947, when he served as a civilian economist attached to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Tokyo and helped to re-establish Japan's social security system. After his return to the United States, he worked for the Social Security Administration (1950-53) and for the Department of Labor (1953-59). He then took a post with the International Labor Organization, an agency of the United Nations, and administered a training program for social security officials from underdeveloped nations (1959-1964).

Rohrlich re-entered the academic world in 1964. After three years at the University of Chicago's School of Social Science Administration (1964-1967), he moved to Temple University's School of Business Administration, where he remained until his retirement in 1981.

Rohrlich firmly believed that the study of economics had to move beyond the analysis of "objective" market forces. He was a lifelong defender of the social welfare measures instituted during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party.

Rohrlich was also committed to teaching young people about Judaism and papal efforts to facilitate reconciliation between Roman Catholics and Jews. His religious convictions led him to support papal efforts to faciliate reconciliation between Austrian Roman Catholics and Jews and fed into his deep concern about the massive build-up of nuclear weapons that took place during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Rohrlich expressed his views about nuclear arms to numerous politicians and participated in a summer 1983 anti-nuclear pilgrimage to Japan.

He died of pneumonia on August 21, 1995 at the Homestead Nursing Center, Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.