Biden to Elect Former Fed Chair Yellen as First Woman Treasury Secretary, Allies Say



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WASHINGTON: US President-elect Joe Biden is expected to appoint former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen as US Treasury Secretary, putting a woman in office for the first time, according to two allies. Democrats.

With Yellen, 74, Biden has chosen a seasoned lawmaker respected by Congress, international finance officials, progressives and business interests, and one who has called for the taps on fiscal spending to be turned on to fuel economic recovery. .

A spokesperson for Biden’s transition team declined to comment. Yellen, contacted by phone, also declined to comment. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier Monday that Biden planned to nominate Yellen as his head of the Treasury.

Jen Psaki, Biden’s transition adviser, tweeted that the president-elect “hopes to announce early next week to some members of his economic team that they will work with him to better rebuild the economy.”

Earlier Monday, Biden named veteran diplomat Antony Blinken as his new Secretary of State and named other members of his national security team.

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, continues to dispute without evidence Biden’s victory over him in the November 3 elections.

STRONG ATTORNEY FOR TAX AID

Yellen has called for increased public spending to boost the US economy from a deep recession brought on by the coronavirus and has frequently cited rising economic inequality in the United States as a threat to US values ​​and Her future.

At the Treasury, she would have an important role in influencing fiscal and tax policy in the United States, tools she did not have at the Fed, which she presided over from 2014 to 2018. She was vice president of the Fed from 2010 to 2014.

Yellen was chosen over two other seasoned economic lawmakers, including current member of the Fed’s Board of Governors, Lael Brainard, 58, who served as undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs early in the Obama administration. Also being considered is former Fed Governor Roger Ferguson, 69, who recently announced his retirement as chairman of the TIAA pension fund.

Ferguson would have been the first secretary of the black Treasury.

US stocks regained ground following the report, and investors saw Yellen as a force for further fiscal action to combat the economic crisis unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and as someone in a strong position to ensure that the Treasury continues. working closely with the Federal Reserve.

“Yellen should be a strong advocate for more aggressive fiscal policy, and given her seriousness in Washington, can make her the most effective fiscal expansion advocate Biden could have chosen,” said Tom Graff, director of fixed income at Brown Advisory in Baltimore.

The S&P 500 Index rose roughly unchanged on the day at the time of the initial report to gain 0.57 percent at the closing bell. Prices of United States Treasury securities remained low on the day. The dollar changed little.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Biden’s rival for the Democratic nomination for the presidency and also considered a possibility for the Treasury job, tweeted that Yellen would be “an outstanding pick” and praised her for having “taken on the banks of Wall. Street “as Fed. Chair.

“Experience, system knowledge and a deep understanding of monetary policy – it brings a lot to the table,” said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth in Fairfield, Connecticut. “And having a deep understanding of how the Fed works and taking it to the Treasury is a good decision.”

Current Fed Chairman Jerome Powell served as a member of the Board of Governors during Yellen’s four-year tenure as Fed Chairman, succeeding her in 2018.

The daughter of a family physician and elementary school teacher in Brooklyn, New York, Yellen earned a Ph.D. in economics from Yale and has taught economics at the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University, and the London School of Economics (LSE). .

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