Janet Yellen: I would have liked to serve another term as head of Fed
US central bank chief, who will take up a position at fiscal think tank, says she was disappointed to have not been reappointed by Trump
Janet Yellen said she was disappointed that US President Donald Trump did not keep her on for a second term as Federal Reserve chairwoman.
“I would have liked to serve an additional term and I did make that clear, so I will say I was disappointed not to be reappointed,” Yellen told “PBS NewsHour” on Friday.
Yellen officially ended her four-year term on Saturday. She had submitted her resignation from the board of governors of the Federal Reserve in November after Trump, in a break with tradition, did not reappoint her. Trump instead nominated current Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell to take over as head of the central bank.
Yellen, 71, could have chosen to remain a governor, since she was appointed to the board by president Barack Obama for an unexpired term ending in 2024. However, The Wall Street Journal reported that she chose to leave for a position at a fiscal think tank. Starting Monday, Yellen will become a distinguished fellow in residence in economic studies at the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution.
Ben Bernanke, Yellen’s predecessor, also is a fellow at the Washington, DC, center.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump alleged that Yellen kept interest rates low for political reasons to benefit Obama.
Yellen was the first woman to serve as Fed chair. She and her husband, George Akerlof, a 2001 Nobel economics laureate, were active in the Bay Area Jewish community when Akerlof taught at the University of California, Berkeley.
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