Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute has been tapped to be Vice President-elect Joe Biden's chief economist and economic policy adviser. Bernstein was an Obama adviser during the campaign, and has done great work at EPI and elsewhere; he also represents the most liberal member of the new administration's announced economic team. He was the guy who coaxed Robert Rubin into voicing his support for deficits and stimulus spending and labor, so I figure he can do alright with Larry Summers. Here he is today on the depressing jobs report:
"With the loss of over half-a-million jobs just last month, the US job market is now shedding jobs at a truly alarming rate, a rate that is measurably worse than past recessions."Policy makers need to recognize this as an emergency at the scale of any we've seen in recent years. The American workforce is too big to fail."
It's unclear how much authority his position in Biden's office will have or what his responsibilities will be, but thus far it Bernstein is the closest liberal economist to the White House. Good news for the left, good news for America.
-- Tim Fernholz
