Jared Bernstein, who grew up Ridgefield, is asked to serve on Biden economic team

Progressive economist Jared Bernstein, who grew up in Ridgefield, has been tapped to serve on the Council of Economic Advisors by President-elect Joe Biden. “As a CEA member I’m soooo excited to get to work with my awesome new colleagues in fast pursuit of full employment and a recovery that reaches everyone,” Bernstein told supporters in the economics community via Twitter. Bernstein was chief economic adviser to Vice President Biden from 2009 to 2011 during the Obama administration. Bernstein’s expected nomination to the Council of Economic Advisers was made public Monday. He is part of the economic team formally announced by Biden on Tuesday that is headed by treasury secretary nominee and former Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen. He has been serving as a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. In that role, he testified in July before the joint economic committee of Congress. “The single message of my testimony is that Congress must do all it can to reduce this uncertainty and give the American people reason to believe that the federal government is their reliable partner,” he said in July 30 testimony. “They need to see that members of this body will work together with the requisite urgency to help them and their families and their businesses make it through to the other side of this crisis.” Bernstein grew up in Ridgefield and graduated with Ridgefield High School’s class of 1973. He also attendedthe private Wooster School in Danbury. His mother, Evelyn Bernstein, was a longtime Ridgefield High School teacher, and his sister, Judy Bernstein, also taught in Ridgefield schools for a time and was president of the teacher’s union. Bernstein’s has taught at Howard University, Columbia University and New York University, and has worked at the Economic Policy Institute. After Ridgefield High School studied the double bass at the Manhattan School of Music, and then got a master’s degree in social work from Hunter College and a master’s in philosophy and Ph.D. in social welfare from Columbia University.

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