Jerome Powell

Jerome Powell
Official portrait, 2022
16th Chair of the Federal Reserve
Incumbent
Assumed office
February 5, 2018
PresidentDonald Trump
Joe Biden
DeputyRichard Clarida
Lael Brainard
Philip Jefferson
Preceded byJanet Yellen
Member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
Incumbent
Assumed office
May 25, 2012
Nominated byBarack Obama
Preceded byFrederic Mishkin
Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance
In office
April 7, 1992 – January 20, 1993
PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush
Preceded byRobert R. Glauber
Succeeded byFrank N. Newman
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions
In office
1990 – April 7, 1992
PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush
Preceded byDavid W. Mullins Jr.
Succeeded byJohn Cunningham Dugan
Personal details
Born
Jerome Hayden Powell

(1953-02-04) February 4, 1953 (age 71)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political partyRepublican[1]
Spouse
Elissa Leonard
​
(m. 1985)​
Children3
EducationPrinceton University (BA)
Georgetown University (JD)
SignatureSignature of Jerome Powell
Jerome Powell's voice
Jerome Powell outlines the Fed's semiannual monetary policy report at a Senate Banking Committee hearing
Recorded February 26, 2019

Jerome Hayden "Jay" Powell (born February 4, 1953) is an American attorney and investment banker who has served since 2018 as the 16th chair of the Federal Reserve.

After earning a degree in politics from Princeton University in 1975 and a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center in 1979,[2] he moved to investment banking in 1984 and worked for several financial institutions, including as a partner of The Carlyle Group.[2] In 1992, Powell briefly served as under secretary of the Treasury for domestic finance under President George H. W. Bush. Powell left Carlyle Group in 2005 and founded Severn Capital Partners, a private investment firm. He was a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center from 2010 to 2012 before returning to public service.[2]

He became a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors after being nominated to the post by President Barack Obama in 2012, he was subsequently elevated to chairman by President Donald Trump (succeeding Janet Yellen) and renominated to the position by President Joe Biden.[3][4][5][6] Powell built his reputation in Washington during the Obama administration as a consensus-builder and problem-solver.[2]

Powell received bipartisan praise for the actions taken by the Federal Reserve in early 2020 to combat the financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.[7] As the Federal Reserve continued to apply high levels of monetary stimulus to further raise asset prices and support growth, some observers perceived a disconnect between asset prices and the economy.[8][9][10] Powell has responded by arguing that supporting the Fed's dual mandate of stable prices and full employment outweighed concern over high asset prices.[11] Time said the scale and manner of Powell's actions had "changed the Fed forever"[12] and shared concerns that he had conditioned Wall Street to unsustainable levels of monetary stimulus to artificially support high asset prices.[9] In November 2020, Bloomberg News called Powell "Wall Street's Head of State", as a reflection of how dominant Powell's actions were on asset prices and how profitable his actions were for Wall Street.[13]

Nearing the end of his first year in the White House, President Biden nominated Powell for a second term as Federal Reserve Chair and the Senate Banking Committee approved of his renomination with only one dissenting vote; he was confirmed to a second term in an 80–19 vote on May 12, 2022.[14] Following President Biden's renomination of Powell, the Fed Chairman retired his previous words "transitory inflation", and indicated a reduction in quantitative easing (QE) and mortgage-backed security (MBS) purchases due to high inflation, with the consumer price index (CPI) in November 2021 having reached 6.8% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest level in 40 years.[15]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference nominate was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c d Long, Heather (June 2, 2017). "Who is Jerome Powell, Trump's pick for the nation's most powerful economic position?". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on July 22, 2019. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  3. ^ GONZALES, RICHARD (January 23, 2018). "Senate Confirms Jerome Powell As New Federal Reserve Chair". NPR. Archived from the original on January 31, 2018. Retrieved January 31, 2018.
  4. ^ LANE, SYLVAN (January 31, 2018). "Senate confirms Jerome Powell as Fed chairman". The Hill. Archived from the original on August 15, 2019. Retrieved August 15, 2019.
  5. ^ "Federal Open Market Committee unanimously selects Jerome H. Powell to serve as its Chairman, effective February 3, 2018". The Federal Reserve. January 31, 2018. Archived from the original on July 19, 2018. Retrieved February 2, 2018.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference wp3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Authers, John (August 4, 2020). "The Fed's Stocks Policy Is Exuberantly Asymmetric". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on November 27, 2020. Retrieved November 18, 2020.
  9. ^ a b Pearlstein, Steven (June 17, 2020). "The Fed is addicted to propping up the markets, even without a need". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 8, 2020. Retrieved November 24, 2020.
  10. ^ Mohamed A. El-Erian (November 23, 2020). "Joe Biden needs to break the market's codependency with White House". Financial Times. Archived from the original on November 24, 2020. Retrieved November 24, 2020.
  11. ^ Authers, John (June 11, 2020). "Powell's Ready to Play the Fresh Prince of Bubbles". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on November 6, 2020. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
  12. ^ Leonard, Christopher (June 22, 2020). "How Jay Powell's Coronavirus Response Is Changing the Fed Forever". Time. Archived from the original on November 13, 2020. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  13. ^ Greifeld, Katherine; Wang, Lu; Hajric, Vildana (November 6, 2020). "Stocks Show Jerome Powell Is Still Wall Street's Head of State". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  14. ^ Cox, Jeff (May 12, 2022). "Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell confirmed by Senate for a second term". CNBC. Archived from the original on May 12, 2022. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  15. ^ "US price rises hit highest level for 40 years". BBC. December 10, 2021. Archived from the original on December 10, 2021. Retrieved December 10, 2021.