Janet Yellen Bio
Janet Louise Yellen (born August 13, 1946) is an American economist and academic who served as the 78th United States Secretary of the Treasury from 2021 to 2025. She also served as Chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018 and was the first woman to hold either of those positions. A long-time professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Yellen has held senior roles across the Federal Reserve System, including vice chair and president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Her research focuses on unemployment, labor markets, and macroeconomic policy, and she is widely regarded as a Keynesian economist who emphasizes employment and financial stability.
Janet Yellen Early Life and Background
Early Life and Background
Janet Louise Yellen was born on August 13, 1946, in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, and grew up there in a family of Polish Jewish heritage. Her mother, Anna Ruth (née Blumenthal), was an elementary school teacher who left her job to become a stay-at-home mother, while her father, Julius Yellen, was a family physician who operated his practice from the ground floor of their home. Janet has an older brother, John, who later became a program director for archaeology at the National Science Foundation.
Yellen’s father’s family immigrated to the United States from Sokołów Podlaski, a small town about fifty miles outside Warsaw, and she has spoken publicly about how nearly the entire Jewish community there, including many of her relatives, was deported or murdered during the Holocaust. She attended Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn before going on to study at Brown University. Her upbringing in a household shaped by her parents’ work, her Jewish heritage, and the memory of the war left a lasting influence on her outlook and economic thinking.
Janet Yellen Path to US Politics
Path to US Politics
Yellen earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University in 1967 and then completed a Master of Arts and a Ph.D. in economics at Yale University in 1971. She became an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University, where she was one of only two female faculty members in the department. After failing to win tenure at Harvard, she was recruited as a staff economist for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in 1977, where she researched international monetary reform.
While working at the Federal Reserve, Yellen met economist George Akerlof, and the couple married in 1978. She then moved with him to London, where she held a tenure-track lectureship at the London School of Economics. In 1980, Yellen joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, and spent more than two decades teaching macroeconomics and conducting research at the Haas School of Business. Her transition into public service began in 1994, when President Bill Clinton nominated her to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, launching her career in senior government economic policy.
Janet Yellen Career
Early Career (1971-1994)
Yellen began her academic career in 1971 as an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University, where she taught for five years and co-authored research with fellow economist Rachel McCulloch. After leaving Harvard, she became a staff economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in 1977, focusing on international monetary reform and meeting her future husband, George Akerlof, in the building’s cafeteria. She then spent two years at the London School of Economics before joining the University of California, Berkeley, in 1980.
At Berkeley, Yellen built a distinguished record in research and teaching, earning tenure in 1982, becoming a full professor in 1985, and receiving the Haas School’s outstanding teaching award twice. She took on advisory roles with the Congressional Budget Office, the National Science Foundation, and the National Bureau of Economic Research, building a reputation as a leading expert on labor markets, unemployment, and Keynesian economics.
Federal Reserve Era (1994-2018)
Yellen joined the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in 1994 after being nominated by President Bill Clinton and later served as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 1997 to 1999. After returning briefly to academia, she became president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 2004 to 2010. In 2010, President Barack Obama nominated her as vice chair of the Federal Reserve, a position she held until 2014.
In 2014, Yellen was nominated by President Obama to succeed Ben Bernanke as Chair of the Federal Reserve, becoming the first woman to lead the institution. She served as chair until 2018, when President Donald Trump chose not to renominate her, and she was succeeded by Jerome Powell. Following her departure, she joined the Brookings Institution as a distinguished fellow in residence.
Secretary of the Treasury Era (2021-2025)
On November 30, 2020, President-elect Joe Biden nominated Yellen to serve as Secretary of the Treasury, and she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 25, 2021. She was sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris the following day, becoming the first woman to hold the position. As Treasury Secretary, Yellen focused on global tax reform, debt ceiling management, sanctions policy, and financial stability in the face of major economic challenges.
In April 2021, Yellen proposed a global minimum corporate tax rate to prevent profit shifting, and by October 2021, more than 130 countries agreed to a 15 percent minimum tax. She worked to raise or suspend the U.S. debt ceiling on several occasions and supported the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, directing the Internal Revenue Service to use $80 billion in additional funding over a decade. She also led international efforts to impose sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and visited Kyiv in February 2023 to reaffirm U.S. economic support. Yellen served as Treasury Secretary until 2025.
Janet Yellen Family
Family Background and Heritage
Janet Louise Yellen was born into a family of Polish Jewish heritage in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. Her father, Julius Yellen, was a family physician whose parents had immigrated from Sokołów Podlaski, Poland, and her mother, Anna Ruth (née Blumenthal), was an elementary school teacher. Janet grew up with an older brother, John, and the family remained in Bay Ridge throughout her childhood.
Personal Life
Yellen married economist George Akerlof in June 1978, less than a year after they met at the Federal Reserve. Akerlof is a 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureate and a university professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. The couple has one son, Robert Akerlof, born in 1981, who is also an economist and a full professor at the UNSW Business School in Sydney. Yellen and Akerlof have often collaborated on research on topics such as poverty, unemployment, and labor markets, and Yellen has described her husband as her biggest intellectual influence.