The business world may be comfortable with
Yellen, but she’s no businessperson herself. Unlike Hank
Paulson or John Snow , Wall Street execs turned Treasury
heads, Yellen is a career economist. And the direction of
the stock market is not her North Star. Yellen’s perspective,
says Ben Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chair and
now distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution, isn’t
to please any particular interest group. Rather, it’s “how do
we get the economy going, and how do we make sure the
benefits are spread as widely as possible?”
If Mnuchin was the Beltway’s “most eager man,” as he’s
been called, the Brooklyn-born Yellen is Washington’s
“most prepared woman.” She certainly won’t be arrang-
ing photo ops with sheets of money, as her predecessor
did. “She’s got a whole new set of issues that she’s going to
have to dig into, and she will,” says Bernanke. “I mean, she
won’t be satisfied until she understands exactly why every
particular line in the tax code is as unintelligible as it is,
what it means, and how to fix that.”
Indeed, Yellen is legendary for her focus. Her colleagues
past and present emphasize that their relationship withYellen is centered wholly around work and shoptalk. She
often remarks that people would be bored if they joined
her family for dinner, as she and her husband, George
Akerlof, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001,
usually engage in rigorous work-related discussion. Her
son is also in the family business; he received his Ph.D. in
economics from Harvard University in 2009 and teaches
at the University of Warwick in England.
Bernanke is quick to point out that Yellen prefers to
prepare for meetings very, very far in advance. She’s
known for showing up to airports hours before her flight;
she says that she uses the extra time to read. Adds Ber-
nanke: “She’s a meticulous, cautious, thoughtful person.
She speaks quietly. She’s well prepared, and she’s done all of
the analysis. But she’s not a shrinking violet, and she’s not
afraid to speak up. Sometimes the quietest person in the
room is the person you most want to listen to.”
Yellen prefers to read from notes rather than speak off
the cuff. As director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and
Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution, David Wes-
sel has worked closely with Yellen and has seen her speakTAKING ON
CLIMATE
CHANGEExpect a renewed
focus on the
environment from
the Biden team.
“Climate change
is a big priority.
It’s going to be
very clearly in
focus,” says Yel-
len. In the past,
she’s supported
a carbon tax that
would charge
polluters for
emissions and
redistribute funds
to U.S. house-
holds through
dividends.
Last fall, Yellen
cochaired a com-
mittee on how to
achieve net-zero
emissions. Rec-
ommendations
included shifting
incentives for
companies to
prioritize sustain-
ability and using
markets to speed
the transition
from fossil fuels.CHALLENGING
CHINA ON
TRADEWe need to reset
the relationship
with China, says
Yellen, and in
order to do so
effectively the
U.S. will have to
work with allies
to address com-
mon challenges
instead of operat-
ing unilater-
ally as the Trump
administration
preferred. “China
is a very strategic
competitor,” she
says, noting that
the U.S. needs to
“use an array of
tools” to address
a number of
disruptive actions
taken by China,
such as “dumping
products, erecting
trade barriers,
and giving illegal
subsidies to cor-
porations.” Those
actions are “hurt-
ing our economy,”
she says.REBUILDING
CAPACITY AT
TREASURYThe Treasury
budget over the
past four years
has been “cut
enormously,”
says Yellen.
There has been
a reallocation of
personnel toward
activities ranging
from monitoring
terrorism and
other national
security concerns
and away from
economic security
at home. While the
former are “im-
portant things for
us to preserve,”
says Yellen, “in
the process, other
areas of the Trea-
sury have really
been depleted.”
She will be staffing
up Treasury with
people dedicated
to her overarching
mission of ad-
dressing struc-
tural economic
changes.STRAIGHT
FROM THE
SECRETARY’S
MOUTH
POLICYYELLEN OUTLINES FOUR OF
HER TOP PRIORITIES.The push for a $1.9 tril-
lion COVID-19 relief
package is the Biden
administration’s chief
focus now. But true to
form, Secretary Yellen
has already outlined her
tenure at the Treasury
and identified what else
she wants to accom-
plish. Here is what lies
at the top of her list.TACKLING
INCOME
INEQUALITYYellen believes it’s
critical to address
the economy’s
structural imbal-
ance. “We have an
economy where
the typical high
school–educated
worker is barely
seeing any wage
increase for the
last 50 years,
and we need to
change that and
make sure that
those workers
get the kind of
pay they de-
serve,” she says.
That will happen
by investing in
infrastructure
and R&D, and by
educating workers
so that they have
the skills to utilize
modern technol-
ogy. Yellen also
plans to focus on
small-business
loan programs
to help boost
job creation.WHAT COMES NEXT : THE ECONOMY