The Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve

Philip N. Jefferson is an American economist who, in May 2023, was named vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board (FRB). This is the board’s second-highest position and makes Jefferson a powerful voice in determining U.S. economic policy. Jefferson is only the fourth Black man to serve on the FRB and the second to be vice chair.

Jefferson was born and raised in Washington, D.C., and decided to work in economics at an early age. He had an impressive academic career before President Joe Biden nominated him to join the FRB in January 2022.

Jefferson trained in economics, and he has worked at universities and in government since he completed his Ph.D. in 1990. He took office as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on May 23, 2022. His term is due to end on Jan. 31, 2036.

Jefferson has authored and edited books on poverty and focused his teaching on inequality. He has taught at Columbia University, the University of Virginia, and Swarthmore College, and he has served as a visiting assistant research economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

Early Life and Education

Jefferson was born and raised in Kingman Park, a working-class neighborhood of Washington, D.C. His parents divorced when he was young, after which he attended a private high school. He says that he decided to work in economics from a very young age: Every evening growing up, he watched the “CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.”

“It was a ritual in our house,” Jefferson explained in 1998. “Whenever I saw bankers on TV, they were very well dressed, so I decided to become a banker,” Jefferson said.

In pursuit of that goal, Jefferson attended a series of prestigious schools. He earned his undergraduate degree at Vassar College, spent his junior year at the London School of Economics, and participated in the American Economic Association pipeline program at Yale University the following summer. He completed a doctoral degree at the University of Virginia in 1990.

Notable Accomplishments

Jefferson has had a glittering academic career, especially given his humble roots. After finishing his Ph.D. in 1990, he taught at a series of prestigious universities, including both Columbia and Berkeley. He also worked as an economist at the FRB, and in 2005 served as president of the National Economic Association.

Jefferson’s academic research has focused on the causes and effects of poverty, and he has published widely on this topic. In 2012, he edited “The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Poverty,” and in 2018, he wrote “Poverty: A Very Short Introduction” for Oxford University Press.

Interests

Jefferson’s primary research interests are in poverty, specifically the impact of economic crises on the poorest in society. He has pointed out that although economic crises affect everyone in society, their impact is often far worse on those who have not built up wealth during times of relative plenty.

Jefferson also has academic interests in a number of other fields of economics—macroeconomics and applied econometrics in particular. These are both fields that look at the relationship between the government and the economy and seek to explain how policymakers can manage economic growth. Both of these interests are, therefore, relevant to his current role at the FRB.

Jefferson has also taken on some more unusual subjects in his research. After he saw an article in the newsletter of the Southern Poverty Law Center that gave the locations of hate groups in the United States, he wondered whether poverty and other economic conditions in these places could explain the presence of these groups in certain communities.

After researching the subject, however, he found that a far better predictor was whether the county had been a member of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

“Here we are,” he said, “more than 100 years after the Civil War and that factor is still playing out.”

Jefferson as Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve

On Jan. 14, 2022, President Biden nominated Jefferson to be a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The U.S. Senate Banking Committee supported his nomination by a 24-0 vote, and the full Senate confirmed his nomination by a 91-7 vote. He became just the fourth Black man to serve on the board.

In May 2023, Biden chose Jefferson to be the FRB vice chair, replacing Lael Brainard, who left in February to become the president’s National Economic Council director. The nomination made Jefferson one of the most powerful economists in the country.

The Bottom Line

Philip Jefferson is an American economist who was named vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board in May 2023. Jefferson wanted to be a banker when he was growing up in Washington, D.C. He attended and then taught at a series of prestigious universities before President Biden nominated him to the Federal Reserve Board in 2022. He is the fourth Black man to serve on the board and the second to serve as vice chair.