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Janet Yellen was born in Brooklyn on August 13, 1946. She graduated as an economist from Brown University and received her Ph.D. from Yale in 1971. That same year, she became a professor at Harvard. In 1980, Yellen took on various positions within the Federal Reserve while teaching at Berkeley.

In today’s article, we want to talk about the remarkable career of Janet Yellen and the challenges she will have to face as the newly appointed US Treasury secretary.

Yellen is the first woman appointed Treasury secretary of the US

Janet Yellen is a figure with experience in politics. First, she headed Bill Clinton’s White House Council of Economic Advisers from 1997 to 1999. More recently, she came to lead the «Fed» (the US Federal Reserve) in 2014 when she was appointed by President Barack Obama, under whom Joe Biden served as vice president for eight years.

Yellen is the third member of Biden’s cabinet to receive the green light from the Senate. The other two were Defense secretary Lloyd Austin, the first African-American to lead the Pentagon, and the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines.

On her official Twitter account, Yellen acknowledged that «we face great challenges as a country right now. To recover, we must restore the American dream, a society where each person can rise to their potential and dream even bigger for their children. As Treasury Secretary, I will work every day towards rebuilding that dream for all.»

The challenges Mrs. Yellen must face

It is no surprise that Janet Yellen will have to face many challenges, perhaps some of the toughest in US history. The crisis caused by the covid-19 continues, and her primary goal is the recovery of the economy.

Even though the pandemic has disproportionately affected some sectors of the population, people have been losing purchasing power for different reasons. Both president Biden and Yellen know that finding real solutions will take time, but they are also aware that extreme times call for extreme measures. For this reason, we can expect the Treasury secretary to play a fundamental role in the decision-making process of this administration.

Right now, the most pressing concern for her is negotiating the approval of Biden’s $1.9 trillion rescue plan with Congress. But besides reviving the US economy, Janet Yellen also needs to restore the confidence of the international community in the US, as Treasury bonds are one of the main safe-haven assets globally.