Biden names members of White House economic team led by Janet Yellen
President-elect Joe Biden on Monday announced the key members of his economic team led by former Fed chair Janet Yellen, who would become the first woman to serve as Treasury secretary if confirmed.
“This crisis-tested team will help President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris lift America out of the current economic downturn and build back better — creating an economy that gives every single person across America a fair shot and an equal chance to get ahead,” the incoming Biden administration said in a statement.
“These choices reflect the president-elect’s commitment to building an administration that looks like America, drawing on the diverse backgrounds and lived experiences of some of our nation’s foremost economic experts,” it said.
Along with Yellen’s selection as Treasury secretary, Biden named Neera Tanden as director of the Office of Management and Budget, Wally Adeyemo as deputy Treasury secretary, Cecilia Rouse as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Berstein and Heather Boushey as members of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Biden’s announcement of his economic picks comes a day after he named an all-female group to head up the White House communications team, with Kate Bedingfield, the campaign’s communications director, and Jen Psaki, a former White House communications director, playing leading roles.
Yellen is a Brooklyn native who was named to lead the Federal Reserve in 2014 after previously serving as vice chair from 2010. Under President Bill Clinton, she was chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. If confirmed, she would be the first woman to lead the Treasury Department in its 231-year history.
Tanden is president and CEO of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. She was director of domestic policy for the first Obama-Biden presidential campaign and, as a senior adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services, developed policies for the Affordable Care Act.
She has already drawn attention from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who said she stands “zero chance” of being confirmed.
“Neera Tanden, who has an endless stream of disparaging comments about the Republican Senators’ whose votes she’ll need, stands zero chance of being confirmed,” Cornyn’s communications director, Drew Brandewie, wrote on Twitter Sunday.
Adeyemo is president of the nonprofit Obama Foundation. In the Obama-Biden administration, he served as a senior international economic adviser, filling various posts such as deputy national security adviser, deputy director of the National Economic Council and first chief of staff of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Rouse, a labor economist, is dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. She previously served as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama-Biden administration and was special assistant to Clinton.
If confirmed, Rouse would be the first woman of color to head the Council of Economic Advisers.
Berstein was the chief economist to then-Vice President Biden and has been a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities since 2011.
Boushey is president and CEO of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and was a longtime economic adviser to Biden. She also served as chief economist of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 transition team.