Biden to choose ex-Fed chair Yellen as first woman Treasury secretary, allies say

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden is expected to tap former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen as U.S. Treasury Secretary, according to two Democratic allies. A spokesman for Biden's campaign declined to comment. Yellen, reached by phone, also declined to comment.

Yellen, 74, would be the first woman to head the Treasury and Biden's choice represents a move to go with an experienced policymaker respected by Congress, international finance officials, progressives and business interests alike.

The Wall Street Journal earlier on Monday reported that Biden planned to tap Yellen.

Yellen has called for increased government spending to boost the U.S. economy out of a deep recession brought on by the coronavirus and has frequently cited growing economic inequality in the United States as a threat to America's values and its future.

At Treasury, she would have a major role in influencing U.S. fiscal and tax policy, tools she did not have at the Fed, which she chaired from 2014 to 2018. She was vice chair from 2010 to 2014.

The daughter of a family doctor and elementary school teacher in Brooklyn, Yellen earned a doctorate in economics from Yale and has taught economics at the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University and the London School of Economics (LSE).