Who is Lael Brainard? What to know about Biden’s Fed vice chair pick

Lael Brainard is often the outlier.

In her role as one of seven Federal Reserve governors, she’s made a habit of objecting to otherwise-unanimous motions to roll back financial regulations. Until her first objection in 2018, no governor had dissented since 2011.

Barring her handful of dissents each year, there have been just three others from her colleagues in recent years.

One of Brainard’s more-recent dissents came in June 2020, when the Fed considered changes to the Volcker Rule, a landmark provision of the financial-crisis Dodd-Frank law that limits banks’ dealing with private-equity firms and hedge funds.

Brainard cast the sole vote against altering the rule. The proposals, she warned, could weaken core protections and allow banks to “return to risky activities seen in the 2008 financial crisis.”

As Brainard is the only Democrat on the Fed’s board, her objections — 12 in 2020 alone — went unheeded.

But now someone is listening. And his name is Joe Biden.

The president has picked Brainard to be vice chair of the Fed, one of the most powerful economic positions in the world and perhaps the heir apparent to the Federal Reserve chair role itself. Biden on Monday picked Chairman Jerome Powell to lead the Fed for a second term.

The job of Fed vice chair carries say in how interest rates are set, the balance of employment versus inflation, and the direction of regulation over the nation’s biggest banks, such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

“While there’s still more to be done, we’ve made remarkable progress over the last 10 months in getting Americans back to work and getting our economy moving again. That success is a testament to the economic agenda I’ve pursued and to the decisive action that the Federal Reserve has taken under Chair Powell and Dr. Brainard to help steer us through the worst downturn in modern American history and put us on the path to recovery,” President Joe Biden said in a prepared statement.

“As I’ve said before, we can’t just return to where we were before the pandemic, we need to build our economy back better, and I’m confident that Chair Powell and Dr. Brainard’s focus on keeping inflation low, prices stable, and delivering full employment will make our economy stronger than ever before,” he added. “Together, they also share my deep belief that urgent action is needed to address the economic risks posed by climate change, and stay ahead of emerging risks in our financial system.”

A spokesman for the Federal Reserve declined to make Brainard available for an interview.

Biden on Monday announced his intent to nominate the 59-year-old Brainard to serve as Powell’s deputy to help manage the U.S. economy through a jump in inflation, a steady but uneven recovery and sluggish labor force…