“It’s about time that we place more professionals with the lived and professional experience of Black Americans in leadership at the Federal Reserve to steer policy, practices, and regulation that will help create a more inclusive economy and proactively close the racial wealth gap,” Clunie said in a statement.
The committee is expected to advance Jefferson, an economics professor and vice president for academic affairs at Davidson College in North Carolina, with bipartisan support. Patrick J. Toomey, Senate Banking’s ranking Republican, said he planned to vote for him at the confirmation hearing Jefferson shared with Cook and Raskin this month.
Republicans have, however, taken issue with Cook’s credentials, saying her academic work has focused too little on macroeconomics. A professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University, she defended her work at the confirmation hearing.
“I certainly am proud of my academic background. I know that I have been the target of anonymous and untrue attacks on my academic record,” she said. “I have a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. I specialized in macroeconomics and international economics.”
Cook was a senior economist on the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2011 to 2012 and worked for the Treasury Department from 2000 to 2001. She previously held visiting positions at the Fed banks of Minneapolis, New York and Philadelphia and the National Bureau of Economic Research.
