USA's first female treasury secretary: Who is Janet Yellen?

Janet Yellen was born on August 13, 1946, in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family. Her mother is Anna Blumenthal and her father is Julius Yellen. After graduating from Ford Hamilton High School, she graduated from Pembroke College (Brown University) in 1967 with a major in Economics. Yellen received her Ph.D. in the same field from Yale University in 1971. She wrote her doctoral thesis on employment and capital accumulation in open economies, under the mentorship of the later Nobel Prize-winning economist James Tobin.

Yellen taught as a professor of economics at Harvard University from 1971 to 1976 after earning her doctorate.

In 1977, she was hired as an economist on the Fed's Board of Governors by a mentor who knew her from Yale.

After living in London for a while with her husband, she joined the University of California, Berkeley staff in 1980 to conduct research in the field of macroeconomics and teach undergraduate and MBA students.

Yellen is still a professor emeritus here.

From academia to economic management

Having an academic career, Yellen has held top positions in economic management in the United States.

She served as Chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers from 1997-1999 during the Clinton administration.

She served as president and CEO of the San Francisco Fed from 2004 to 2010. Then in 2010, she was appointed as the vice chairman of the Fed. Yellen, who was appointed as Fed Chair in 2014 by former US President Obama, made history as the first woman to hold this position.

What is her stance on key issues?

It is stated that Yellen, who played an active role in the economy management during the 2008 crisis, was also successful in crisis management during the pandemic period thanks to this experience.

It is also stated that one of the biggest advantages of Yellen in the current polarized political conjuncture in the USA is that she is respected by both Republicans and Democrats.

Yellen is known as a strong supporter of the Dodd-Frank Act, which included a series of financial adjustments introduced after the global financial crisis that began in 2008 and later criticized by Trump.

How is the Monetary Policy History?

During her tenure as Fed chair, Janet Yellen made a notable move by raising interest rates for the first time since 2008.

Yellen, who started gradually raising interest rates above zero in 2015, increased rates five times in total until she was replaced by Powell in 2018.

According to the Associated Press, one of Yellen's most memorable moments at the Federal Reserve was her role in supporting Fed Chair Ben Bernanke's purchase of large amounts of Treasury and mortgage bonds to lower borrowing rates to support the economy.

The monetary policy move in question was harshly criticized as it inflated the Fed's balance sheet to $4.5 trillion, which would trigger high inflation, but it was not feared. Inflation remained below the Fed's 2% target. Yellen continued this practice as she took over Bernanke's position.

Strict financial regulations

One of the assessments made about Yellen is that she is not afraid to put pressure on major actors in the US financial sector when necessary.

Toward the end of her term as Fed Chair, Yellen handed Wells Fargo one of the most severe penalties ever for opening millions of accounts that customers didn't want.

The penalty, described as the largest regulatory move in the Fed's history, severely limited the growth of the bank by placing caps on Wells Fargo's assets.

Yellen is reported to be very sensitive and active on social issues such as inequality and racism, as well as her impressive career as an academic and economist.

Private life

Janet Yellen connected her life with George Akerlof, whom she met while dining in the cafeteria of the Fed building in 1977. The couple, who got married in 1978, had a son named Robert Akerlof. The sons of Janet and George, who are shown as the strongest couple in the world of economics, also made a career in the field of economics, just like their parents.

Janet Yellen has many articles that support economic growth, aim to find the causes of unemployment and minimize it, and develop policies in this direction. Yellen, who was a Bob Dylan fan in her youth and never missed any of her concerts, now spends her free time playing tennis and hiking.

January 2021

The US Senate has formally approved Janet Yellen, the former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve (Fed), whom the new President Joe Biden has nominated for Secretary of the Treasury.

In the Senate General Assembly vote, 84 senators voted "yes" for Yellen to become Secretary of the Treasury, while 15 senators voted "no".

Thus, Yellen became the first woman to hold the post of Secretary of the Treasury in US history.