Philip N. Jefferson

Philip N. Jefferson built a career in economics through research, teaching and academic leadership before joining the Federal Reserve Board. The National Economic Association identified him as an African American economist in its 2022 letter supporting his nomination, highlighting research on monetary policy and the connections among poverty, inequality and business cycles.

His research examined how education buffers workers against unemployment and how poverty rates move with business cycles, questions he pursued as a professor and department chair at Swarthmore College. Jefferson earned a bachelor's degree in economics at Vassar College and a master's degree and doctorate at the University of Virginia. His career included work as a Federal Reserve Board economist, leadership of Swarthmore's economics department, and service as vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty at Davidson College, a post he took in 2019, where he held the Paul B. Freeland Professorship of Economics. He also served as president of the National Economic Association.

The Minneapolis Fed profiled him in 2018 as a Swarthmore economist whose work reached poverty, the declining labor share of income and the importance of racial diversity within the economics profession.

President Joe Biden nominated him to the Board of Governors on January 13, 2022. The Senate confirmed him on May 11, 2022, by a vote of 91 to 7, and he took office as a governor on May 23, 2022, filling an unexpired term. On September 13, 2023, he was sworn in as the 23rd vice chair of the Federal Reserve for a four-year term. In that office and as a governor, he takes part in the Federal Open Market Committee, the body that sets the stance of monetary policy.