Janet Yellen

Early life and education

Yellen was born on August 13, 1946, to a family of Polish Jewish ancestry in the Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, neighborhood of New York City, and grew up there. Her mother was Anna Ruth (née Blumenthal; 1907–1986), an elementary school teacher who gave up her teaching job to become a stay-at-home mother. Her father was Julius Yellen (1906–1975), a family physician who worked from the ground floor of their house. Janet has an older brother, John (born 1942), who is a program director for archaeology at the National Science Foundation.

In a speech at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Yellen said that her father's family immigrated to the United States from Sokołów Podlaski, a small town about 50 miles outside of Warsaw. She said further that nearly the entirety of its Jewish population, including many of her relatives, were deported or murdered during the Holocaust.

Yellen attended the local Fort Hamilton High School, where she was an honor society member and participated in the booster club, the psychology club, and the history club. She also served as editor-in-chief of The Pilot, the school newspaper, which continued its 13-year streak as the first-place winner of the prestigious Columbia Scholastic Press Association contest under her leadership. She earned a National Merit commendation letter and was admitted to a selective science honors program at Columbia University to voluntarily study mathematics on Saturday mornings. Yellen was one of 30 students to win state Regents scholarships for college and one of a select few to win the mayor's citation for a scholarship. She graduated in 1963 as the valedictorian of her class.

Yellen enrolled at Pembroke College in Brown University, initially intending to study philosophy. During her freshman year, she switched her planned major to economics and was particularly influenced by professors George Herbert Borts and Herschel Grossman. In the spring of 1964, she also joined the business staff of The Brown Daily Herald, but soon afterward she left the paper to focus on her academic studies. Yellen graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor's in economics from Brown University in 1967, and earned her master's and PhD in economics from Yale University in 1971. Her dissertation was titled Employment, Output and Capital Accumulation in an Open Economy: A Disequilibrium Approach under the supervision of James Tobin, a noted economist who would later receive the Nobel Memorial Prize. As a teaching assistant, Yellen was so meticulous in her note-taking during Tobin's macroeconomics class that her notes became the unofficial textbook and were referred to as "Yellen Notes" while being circulated among generations of graduate students. Her former professor and Nobel Prize in Economics laureate, Joseph Stiglitz, has called her one of his brightest and most memorable students. She later described Yale professors Tobin and William Brainard as "lifelong mentors" who laid the intellectual groundwork for her economic views. Yellen was the only woman among the two dozen economists who earned their doctorates from Yale in 1971.

Academic career

After receiving her Ph.D., Yellen obtained the position of assistant professor of economics at Harvard University, where she taught from 1971 to 1976. At that time, she was one of only two female faculty members in Harvard's economics department; the other woman was Rachel McCulloch. The pair struck up a close friendship and went on to write several academic papers together. In 1977, Yellen took a job within the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors after failing to win tenure at Harvard; she was recruited as a staff economist for the Board of Governors by Edwin M. Truman, who had known her from Yale. Truman was a junior professor when he heard Yellen's oral exam and was then about to take over the Fed's Division of International Finance. She was assigned to research international monetary reform.

While at the Fed, she met her husband, economist George Akerlof, in the bank's cafeteria; they married in 1978, less than a year later. By the time of their marriage, Akerlof had already accepted a teaching position at the London School of Economics (LSE). Yellen left her post at the Fed to accompany him and was given a tenure-track lectureship by LSE. The couple stayed in the United Kingdom for two years before returning to the United States, in part due to identity issues because they felt American, not English.

In 1980, Yellen joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught at the Haas School of Business to conduct macroeconomics research and teach undergraduate and MBA students for more than two decades. She earned the Haas School's outstanding teaching award twice, in 1985 and 1988. Yellen became just the second woman at Berkeley-Haas to earn tenure in 1982, as well as the title of full professor in 1985. She was named the Bernard T. Rocca Jr. Professor of International Business and Trade in 1992.

From 1994 to 1999, Yellen took a leave of absence from Berkeley to go into public service. After returning to academia, she resumed her teaching assignment at Haas and received a joint appointment with Berkeley's Department of Economics. She was appointed the Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Economics in 1999 and remained an active faculty member until she was appointed president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in 2004. Yellen was awarded the title of professor emeritus at UC Berkeley in 2006.

Contributions to economics

Yellen's academic career has largely focused on the analysis of the mechanisms of unemployment and labor markets, monetary and fiscal policies, and international trade. She has written a few widely cited papers, often collaborating on research with her husband, Professor George Akerlof.

Since the 1980s, Yellen and Akerlof have addressed what is known in the economics literature as "efficiency wage theory" – the idea that paying people more than the market wage does increase their productivity. Their 1990 paper, entitled "The Fair-Wage Effort Hypothesis and Unemployment", coined "the fair wage effort hypothesis" and was considered by economists to be a significant contribution to the topic: "A precursor to the efficiency wage literature...it had an influence, although the work on efficiency wage theory has had a bigger influence." Akerlof and Yellen introduced the gift-exchange game, which argues that workers who are paid less than what they consider to be a fair wage will purposefully work less hard to exact revenge on their employer.

Another work, "An Analysis of Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing in the United States", co-written with Akerlof and Michael Katz and published in 1996, aims to explain why out-of-wedlock births have grown considerably in previous decades in the United States. A research study led to a theory called "reproductive technology shock", arguing that the increased availability of both abortion and contraception in the late 1960s and early 1970s, amidst the sexual revolution, eroded the social norms surrounding sex, pregnancy, and marriage, leading to a sharp decline in the stigma of unwed motherhood. At the same time, this transformation encouraged biological fathers to reject notions of marital and paternal obligations.

Federal Reserve (1994–1997)

On April 22, 1994, President Bill Clinton announced his intention to nominate Yellen as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, alongside Alan Blinder, who has been designated as vice chairman. They were the first Democratic appointees to the Board since 1980. In an issued statement, the president praised her as "one of the most prominent economists of her generation on the intersection of macroeconomics and labor markets." President Clinton played an indirect role in the selection process, delegating most of the responsibility to NEC Director Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, and CEA Chair Laura Tyson, who was a colleague of Yellen's at Berkeley. The group settled on her candidacy after an exhaustive search that at one point included nearly 50 names. In July 1994, during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen said that Fed policies should keep the economy growing as much as possible without accelerating inflation but avoid taking a clear position on the prospect of further increases in interest rates. The Senate panel approved her nomination without much Republican opposition, by a vote of 18 to 1; the only dissenting vote came from Senator Lauch Faircloth (R-NC), who said that her concerns should be limited to inflation. The nomination was confirmed in the full United States Senate by a vote of 94–6. On August 12, 1994, Yellen was appointed to a full 14-year term and assumed the seat vacated by Republican Wayne Angell. She was installed as the fourth female governor, joining Susan M. Phillips, which marks the first time that two women have sat on the Federal Reserve Board simultaneously.

In July 1996, the Federal Reserve resisted pressure to raise interest rates as unemployment dropped. Yellen marshaled academic research to dissuade Chairman Alan Greenspan from committing the Fed to a zero inflation policy and demonstrate that the central bank should seek to moderate inflation rather than eliminate it. According to the study, a low inflation rate of around 2 percent provided a better foundation for reducing unemployment and increasing economic growth than the goal of zero.

Upon her confirmation as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, she resigned as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on February 17, 1997.

Council of Economic Advisers (1997–1999)

On December 20, 1996, Yellen joined the Clinton administration as chair of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), replacing Joseph Stiglitz in office. She was reluctant to leave the Federal Reserve, but White House officials talked her into a job, passing over others with greater marquee value because, as Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said, "We wanted someone who could bring a rigorous analytic approach to the issues and who could work well with others." Yellen was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on February 13, 1997, thereby becoming the second woman to serve as chief economic advisor to the president after Laura Tyson. While serving within the Administration, she concurrently chaired the OECD Economic Policy Committee from 1997 to 1999.

During her time with the Council of Economic Advisers, Yellen oversaw a June 1998 report, "Explaining Trends in the Gender Wage Gap", which focused on the gender pay divide. Within this study, the Council analyzed data from 1969 to 1996 to determine the reasons why women earn substantially less than men. By observing trends attributable to issues such as occupation and industry, as well as familial status, it was determined that while the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was a step forward, there was no explanation for a 25-percent difference between average pay for women and men – an improvement from the 40-percent gap two decades earlier. It was concluded that this gap had no correlation with differences in productivity and, as such, was the result of discrimination within the workforce.

In June 1999, Yellen announced that she was stepping down from the CEA for personal reasons and would return to teaching at UC Berkeley. It was reported that President Clinton asked her to take over from Alice Rivlin, the central bank's vice chairwoman – an offer she turned down.

Return to the Federal Reserve (2004–2018)

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

On April 12, 2004, the Federal Reserve announced that Yellen would replace Robert T. Parry as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, taking office on June 14. She was the first woman to hold this position. While serving as Federal Reserve District president, she sat on the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and was a voting member once every three years on a rotating basis, with her first being in 2006. During her time at the San Francisco Fed, the largest of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks in terms of population and economic output, Yellen publicly downplayed concerns about the potential consequences of the boom in housing prices; at FOMC meetings, on the contrary, she sounded the alarm on banks' heavy concentration in risky construction and home-development loans. On the other hand, she did not lead the San Francisco Fed to "move to check [the] increasingly indiscriminate lending" of Countrywide Financial, the United States' largest lender.

On June 5, 2009, Yellen said that the Federal Reserve should consider raising interest rates earlier to prevent another housing bubble. She argued that higher short-term interest rates probably went against the expansion of a bubble in certain circumstances, like restraining the demand for housing and high-risk mortgages.

In July 2009, Yellen was mentioned as a potential successor to Chairman Ben Bernanke when his term was set to expire before he was re-nominated for a second four-year term. She eventually emerged as the leading contender for vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board in March 2010, and following her Senate confirmation, she resigned from the San Francisco Fed in October of that year.

Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve

On April 28, 2010, President Barack Obama nominated Yellen to succeed Donald Kohn as vice chair of the Federal Reserve. In July 2010, the Senate Banking Committee voted 17–6 to confirm her, though the top Republican on the panel, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, voted no, saying "President Yellen presided over a regional housing bubble and failed to restrain the excesses."

Around the same time, on the heels of related testimony by Fed chairman Bernanke, FOMC voting member James B. Bullard of the St. Louis Fed stated that the U.S. economy was at risk of becoming "enmeshed in a Japanese-style deflationary outcome within the next several years." That statement was interpreted as a possible shift within the FOMC balance between inflation hawks and doves. Yellen's pending confirmation, along with those of Peter Diamond and Sarah Bloom Raskin to fill vacancies, was seen as possibly furthering such a shift in the FOMC. All three nominations were seen as "on track to be confirmed by the Senate."

On September 29, 2010, Yellen, along with Raskin, was confirmed by the Senate on a voice vote to be both a member of the board of governors and vice chairman of the Federal Reserve System. On October 4, the pair were sworn in as Fed governors, while Yellen also took the oath of office as vice chair of the board for a four-year term. Simultaneously, she began a 14-year term as a member of the Federal Reserve Board, filling a vacant seat last held by Mark W. Olson. Yellen was just the second woman to hold the Federal Reserve's No. 2 post, after Alice Rivlin.

In contrast to her predecessors, Yellen acted more independently within the institution in her role as vice chair. She has been urging Bernanke and the other FOMC members to follow her preferred route for monetary policy, arguing for more forceful actions to inject money into the economy to reduce unemployment. Yellen played a leading role in moving the Federal Reserve to announce its inflation target of two percent a year after her long campaign with Chairman Bernanke; she was an early supporter of inflation targeting, facing opposition from Chairman Greenspan during her first stint at the Fed in the 1990s.

Yellen was widely considered the front-runner to succeed Bernanke as the Federal Reserve's chair when his second term ceased. Lawrence Summers, a former President Clinton's Treasury Secretary and former director of President Obama's National Economic Council, was the other leading contender in the highly publicized race; media outlets reported that the president was leaning toward selecting the latter candidate. However, throughout the race, Summers drew criticism from both sides of the aisle for his role in deregulating parts of the banking sector while he served in the Clinton administration. He sparked further controversy for remarks on women's aptitude in math and science, which he made in 2005 while serving as Harvard University's president. In July 2013, Yellen was pushed to be named the first chairwoman of the central bank in a letter that was circulated among the Senate Democrats and had been signed by almost a third of the 54 caucus senators, who primarily represent the liberal wing of the party. In addition, more than 500 professional economists from around 200 colleges and universities across the United States signed an open letter in support of her candidacy for Fed chair and sent it to the White House. After weeks of opposition to his potential nomination, Summers withdrew his name from consideration for the position in September.

Chair of the Federal Reserve

On October 9, 2013, Yellen was officially nominated to replace Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve, the first vice chair ever to be elevated to that post. While announcing his decision, President Obama called her "one of the nation's foremost economists and policymakers" and said that "America's workers and their families will have a champion in Janet Yellen." During the nomination hearings held in November, Yellen defended the more than $3 trillion in stimulus funds that the central bank had been injecting into the U.S. economy. She also said that it is important for the Fed to try to detect asset bubbles and that if she saw one, she would work to address it.

On December 20, 2013, the U.S. Senate voted 59–34 for cloture on Yellen's nomination. On January 6, 2014, she was confirmed as chair of the Federal Reserve by a vote of 56–26, the narrowest margin ever for the position until Kevin Warsh's nomination in 2026. Yellen was a trailblazer as the first woman to head the U.S. central bank, or any major central bank, and the first Democrat to do so since Paul Volcker assumed that position in 1979 via President Jimmy Carter. She was sworn into office on February 3, 2014, and was previously elected as FOMC chair on January 30. According to a Fed representative, on Yellen's request, her title would be altered to "chair" rather than "chairman" or "chairwoman", as she prefers a gender-neutral manner. Only one woman had ever led the central bank of a G8 country before Yellen – Russia's Elvira Nabiullina.

In July 2014, at her first semi-annual congressional testimony on U S. monetary policy, Yellen said, "while real estate, equities, and corporate bond prices have risen appreciably and valuation metrics have increased they were generally in line with historical norms." She also acknowledged some concerns about the valuations of lower-rated corporate debt and affirmed that she and other Fed officials were monitoring trends but did not believe that a so-called "everything bubble" was forming.

On December 16, 2015, the Federal Reserve under Yellen increased its key interest rate for the first time since 2006. That move was largely expected because extraordinarily low rates for an extremely long time may contribute to financial instability and pose a threat to the economy, and was considered a departure from the previous controversial Fed policy, commonly known as the "Greenspan put". During her tenure, the Fed gradually raised rates four additional times, leaving its key rate in a still-low range of 1.25 percent to 1.5 percent – well below historical standards.

After the Federal Reserve (2018–2020)

On February 2, 2018, the Brookings Institution announced that Yellen would join the think tank as a distinguished fellow in residence with the Economic Studies program, effective February 5, 2018. She's been affiliated with the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings. On July 31, 2018, the Hutchins Center announced Yellen, James H. Stock, and Louise Sheiner as co-chairs of the newly launched Productivity Measurement Initiative, aimed at improving the quality of economic statistics.

In November 2020, Yellen left her position at Brookings after being selected as a nominee to serve as Treasury secretary. Within the think tank, she has been providing expertise and commentary on a range of economic issues, offering her perspective and analysis at Brookings panels, congressional testimony, lectures across the United States and abroad, and regularly serving as a commentator in the media.

On June 27, 2017, Yellen stated that she did not expect another financial crisis "in our lifetime" because she thought banks were "much stronger" as a result of Federal Reserve oversight. In a December 10, 2018 conversation with Paul Krugman at the City University of New York, she warned of the possibility of another financial crisis by citing "gigantic holes in the system" after she departs from the Federal Reserve.

On February 25, 2019, in an interview with Marketplace, when asked if she believed Trump has "a grasp of macroeconomic policy," Yellen replied, "No, I do not." She expressed her doubts about the president's ability to articulate the Federal Reserve's explicit goals of "maximum employment and price stability" and emphasized his assertions that the Federal Reserve's goals include trade, which she explains are objectively false. She raised further concern over Trump's regard for the independence of the central bank and voiced support for her successor, Jerome Powell. This interview marked a notable change in tone for Yellen, who traditionally handled her differences with the president in a neutral manner.

On July 17, 2020, at the hearing of the House Select Oversight Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which was set up by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, former Federal Reserve chairs Bernanke and Yellen testified about the economic policy response to the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic. They urged lawmakers to act aggressively with fiscal stimulus in three areas: extending the supplementary unemployment payments; providing additional financial assistance to hard-hit states and local governments; and investing in the medical response to the pandemic. She also expressed this commitment to stimulus in an op-ed for The New York Times with Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Paid corporate speaking

Between 2018 and 2020, Yellen received $7.2 million in speaking fees for 50 speeches at various Wall Street, technology and consulting companies. This included $1 million for giving nine speeches to Citi and $800,000 from the hedge fund Citadel LLC, as well as other paid speeches with Wall Street companies Barclays, Goldman Sachs, UBS and Credit Suisse. Paid speeches with technology companies included Google and Salesforce.

With her return to government, she pledged to get official permission from the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) to participate in substantive issues involving such firms to avoid any conflict of interest.

Secretary of the Treasury (2021–2025)

Nomination and confirmation

Following the 2020 presidential election, Yellen was routinely mentioned as a possible secretary of the treasury in the incoming Biden administration. She edged out other top contenders to obtain the position, including Fed Board Gov. Lael Brainard and Roger W. Ferguson Jr., a former central bank vice chairman.

On November 30, 2020, then-President-elect Biden announced he would nominate Yellen as Treasury Secretary in his cabinet. In his remarks on the announcement, Biden lauded her as "one of the most important economic thinkers of our time" who "spent her career focused on employment and the dignity of work." Despite being a highly respected figure across the political spectrum and expected to win confirmation easily, she was considered an unusual pick for the position because of her lack of experience in political maneuvering. Unlike her predecessors, she is viewed as more of an academic economist than a traditional politician used to horse-trading and dealmaking, qualities that could be critical to achieving the goals of Biden's economic agenda in a deeply partisan Congress. All living former U.S. treasury secretaries, from George Shultz to Jack Lew, endorsed Yellen for the position in a bipartisan letter calling on the Senate to swiftly confirm her.

The Senate Finance Committee unanimously approved Yellen's candidacy by a 26–0 vote on January 22, 2021. The full U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination with a vote of 84–15 (with one abstention, Marco Rubio, R-FL) on January 25. With her oath of office administered by Vice President Harris the next day, Yellen became the first female Secretary of the Treasury and the first person in American history to lead the three most powerful economic bodies in the federal government of the United States: the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Only three other women within the G7 nations – France's Christine Lagarde, Canada's Chrystia Freeland and the United Kingdom's Rachel Reeves – have held positions analogous to Yellen's as Treasury Secretary. Yellen and Lynn Malerba signing currency during Yellen's time as Treasury Secretary also marked the first time two women signed U.S. currency.

Tenure

In April 2021, Yellen proposed a global minimum corporate tax rate that would prevent profit shifting by multinational companies for tax avoidance. In an accompanying written piece for The Wall Street Journal, she outlined the enormous benefits of the discussed tax system for the US economy as well as the global economy. On June 5, 2021, finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) agreed to reinstate a minimum worldwide corporate tax rate of at least 15% as part of a landmark deal to modernize the international tax system, while

France's Bruno Le Maire called it "a starting point" that could be increased in the future. A few days later, Treasury Secretary Yellen co-wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post with four of her international counterparts, describing the new agreement as "an historic opportunity to end the race to the bottom in corporate taxation, restoring government resources at a time when they are most needed." The next month, financial leaders from the G20 countries came to an agreement on plans to put an end to global tax havens, force multinational corporations to pay an appropriate share of tax wherever they operate, and create a "more stable and fair international tax architecture."

In October 2021, more than 130 countries, accounting for more than 90% of global GDP, including several low-tax jurisdictions that had previously fought the pact, enforced through the OECD a landmark agreement to establish a global minimum tax rate of 15% for businesses worldwide. The projected gain from the deal, which was anticipated to take effect in 2023, would result in an increase of $150 billion in annual tax revenues. The treaty's implementation path remained uncertain because its ratification requires a two-thirds majority in the evenly divided U.S. Senate as well as passing domestic legislation in each of the signed countries.

On July 23, 2021, Yellen sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders in which she urged lawmakers to increase or suspend the nation's debt limit as soon as possible before it hit its statutory limit in August and the government would be unable to pay its bills. She warned Congress that failing to meet those financial obligations would cause "irreparable harm" to the U.S. economy and that the Treasury Department would take "extraordinary measures" to prevent the United States from suffering a government shutdown or even a debt default.

On September 19, 2021, Yellen, in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, again called for an increase in the debt ceiling; otherwise, sometime in October, the Treasury expected to exhaust its cash reserves, which would trigger a financial crisis. After lawmakers adopted a short-term debt ceiling bill to raise the United States' borrowing limit through early December, she said that a longer-term measure should be provided to ensure certainty in government's solvency. In November, Yellen expressed her willingness to consider solutions to the debt crisis without GOP support if necessary, using a budget reconciliation as a viable alternative. She also supported the idea for Democrats to raise the debt limit high enough that it would not be reached until after the 2024 general elections while the party holds a majority in both houses of Congress, therefore preventing the issue from being weaponized for political reasons.

Economic philosophy

Yellen is widely considered to be a "dove" on monetary policy (i.e., more concerned with unemployment than with inflation) and, as such, generally favors lower rather than higher Federal Reserve interest rates. She was overall in favor of more stringent financial regulation to lessen systemic risks brought on by flaws in the financial system. Yellen was arguably the most liberal Federal Reserve leader since Marriner S. Eccles, who was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt amidst the Great Depression in 1934. On fiscal policy, publications frequently refer to her as "sort of" a deficit hawk. She expressed concern about the United States fiscal path prior to the COVID-19 recession, particularly about the national debt; in 2018, she said, "If I had a magic wand, I would raise taxes and cut retirement spending." The following year, she again suggested that she favored both raising revenue and making changes to the Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security programs to control spending. In September 2021, at a House Financial Services Committee hearing, Yellen lent support to efforts for the complete removal of the debt ceiling, arguing that the borrowing cap is "very destructive" and poses an unnecessary threat to the American economy.

In January 2019, Yellen was among the 45 original signers of the Economists' Statement on Carbon Dividends, which was eventually signed by over 3,500 prominent American economists promoting a carbon dividends framework for the U.S. policy on climate change. In October 2020, the Group of Thirty's Steering Committee Working Group on Climate Change and Finance, which Yellen co-chaired with Mark Carney, prepared a report that developed a robust and inclusive strategy to amplify and mainstream the global transition to a net-zero emissions economy. The study calls upon governments, businesses, and financial institutions to assess climate risks and supports a phase-in of carbon pricing to accelerate a shift to carbon neutrality.

Yellen is a Keynesian economist and has been described as a "Keynesian to her fingertips". In April 1999, Yellen discussed her views on the application of Keynesian economics to policymaking at the Yale economics department reunion. She stated that while most economists "appreciate the value of markets and incentives," Yalies "can recognize when they are not operating correctly and have higher concern for policies to remedy them." During the 2008 financial crisis, she "warned against an over-hasty removal of stimulus," and "believes the state has a duty to tackle poverty and inequality." When her appointment as treasury secretary was announced, Yellen was viewed by Wall Street as a "Treasury secretary who will push hard for expansionary policies aimed at boosting growth, profits and share prices," although the ability of Yellen to push through her preferred fiscal policies was seen as likely to be constrained by congressional gridlock.

Honors and awards

Yellen has received numerous honors in recognition of her career in academia and politics. These include:

Other recognition

In March 2018, Charles D. Ellis endowed The Janet L. Yellen Chair at the Yale School of Management, which was named after her. Professor Andrew Metrick has been invested as the inaugural Janet L. Yellen Professor of Finance and Management at the School.

In December 2018, Federal Reserve Board presented an annual Janet L. Yellen Award for Excellence in Community Development to recognize the exemplary work of Federal Reserve System staff, intended to honor former chair Yellen's commitment to public service. Ariel Cisneros of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has been named the first recipient of the newly created award.

In October 2025, Barbara Clarke endowed Janet L. Yellen Distinguished Chair in Business at the Brandeis University, which was named after her. Professor Anna Scherbina has been invested as the inaugural Janet L. Yellen Distinguished Professor of Business at the university.

Yellen has been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine four times. This occurred in the years 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2023. Additionally, she was named a runner-up for Time Person of the Year in 2022.

Yellen has been ranked on multiple occasions in Forbes magazine's list of the world's 100 most powerful women. She was named the second-most powerful woman in the world in 2014. Forbes also ranked her several times on its list of the world's most powerful people. She was named the sixth-most powerful person in the world in 2014 and 2016.

Personal life

Yellen is married to George Akerlof, an economist who is a university professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and Koshland Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as a 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureate. The couple met in the fall of 1977, became engaged by that December, and married in June 1978, less than a year after meeting.

Their son, Robert Akerlof (born 1981), is a fellow economist. He received a bachelor's summa cum laude in economics and mathematics from Yale University in 2003 and earned his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 2009, where he was a Presidential Scholar. After two years as a postdoc at MIT, and 14 years at the University of Warwick as an assistant and associate professor of economics, in 2024, he became a full professor of economics at the UNSW Business School in Sydney.

Yellen and George Akerlof have often collaborated on research, including topics such as poverty, unemployment and a paper on the costs of out-of-wedlock childbearing. One of their most discussed papers at Berkeley, on why lower wages sometimes lead to lower employment, came from the personal experience of hiring a nanny for the first time. Yellen says Akerlof has been her biggest intellectual influence. Both frequently state that their lone disagreement is that she is a bit more supportive of free trade than he is.

Yellen has an estimated net worth of $20 million, accrued from stock holdings, speaking engagements, and various government and academic positions. Upon taking office as U.S. Treasury Secretary, she divested her shares including those in Pfizer, ConocoPhillips, and AT&T, among others.

Yellen inherited from her mother a collection of postage stamps worth between $15,000 and $50,000. She does not collect them on her own.

In popular culture

"Who's Yellen Now?" is a song by Dessa, a member of the indie hip-hop collective Doomtree and contributor to The Hamilton Mixtape. Marketplace commissioned the song after then-President-elect Biden announced his intention to nominate Yellen as the nation's first female Treasury Secretary and joked that Lin-Manuel Miranda should write a Hamiltonesque musical about her. In addition, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert premiered a parody of Hamilton's opening song about Yellen.

On NBC's sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL), Yellen was parodied by SNL cast member Kate McKinnon in 2021.

Selected works

Books

Akerlof, George A.; Yellen, Janet L., eds. (October 31, 1986). Efficiency Wage Models of the Labor Market. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511559594. ISBN 978-0-521-31284-4.

Blinder, Alan S.; Yellen, Janet L. (2001). The Fabulous Decade: Macroeconomic Lessons from the 1990s. New York: The Century Foundation Press. ISBN 0-87078-467-6. OCLC 47018413.

Articles

Adams, William James; Yellen, Janet L. (August 1976). "Commodity Bundling and the Burden of Monopoly". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 90 (3): 475–498. doi:10.2307/1886045. JSTOR 1886045.

Akerlof, George A.; Yellen, J. L. (January 1985). "A Near-Rational Model of the Business Cycle, with Wage and Price Inertia". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 100: 823–838. doi:10.1093/qje/100.Supplement.823. ISSN 0033-5533.

Akerlof, George A.; Yellen, Janet L. (May 1990). "The Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis and Unemployment". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 105 (2): 255–283. doi:10.2307/2937787. JSTOR 2937787.