BIDEN TAPS TWO FOR FED BOARD POSITIONS

Economist could be first Hispanic American on panel

President Joe Biden has nominated Philip Jefferson, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, to serve as vice chair of the board, the White House announced Friday.

Biden has also chosen Adriana Kugler, a Georgetown University economist, to join the Fed’s board. If confirmed by the Senate, she would become the first Hispanic American on the Fed’s interest-rate-setting committee.

The two nominations arrive as the Fed is grappling with an increasingly fraught economy marked by rising interest rates, still-high inflation and a shaky banking system. Since March 2022, the Fed has raised its benchmark interest rate 10 times, to the highest level in 16 years, in an aggressive drive to cool price increases. After a policy meeting last week, Chair Jerome Powell signaled that the Fed may now pause its rate hikes.

In the coming months, the Fed will face tough decisions about whether to keep rates unchanged for the rest of this year or resume raising them.

Jefferson, 61, who first joined the Fed’s board just a year ago, would become the second Black man to serve as the Fed’s No. 2 official if confirmed by the Senate. He would replace Lael Brainard, who left in February to become Biden’s top economic adviser. As vice chair, Jefferson would join an inner circle of policymakers that includes Powell and the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, John Williams.

Kugler, 53, who has a background in international and labor economics, is on leave from Georgetown to serve as the United States’ representative on the board of the World Bank. During the Obama administration, she was the Labor Department’s chief economist, from September 2011 to January 2013.