Obama Taps Economist Alan Krueger as Council Chairman

By Joyce Hanson

August 29, 2011 at 11:13 AM

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President Barack Obama on Monday nominated Alan Krueger, a Princeton professor who served as the U.S. Treasury's chief economist from 2009 to 2010, to replace Austan Goolsbee as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

The U.S. Senate must confirm Krueger's nomination before he can take over as Goolsbee's successor. Goolsbee announced in June that he was leaving the CEA to return to his professorship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Krueger, 50, is best known as a micro-economist with a focus on labor issues. Co-author of Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage, as well as Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies?, he served as chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor from 1994 to 1995.

Obama has indicated in recent months that he will focus on U.S. job creation in the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election.

When introducing Krueger in the White House Rose Garden on Monday, Obama said he relied on Krueger's "invaluable" counsel immediately following the economic crisis of 2008, and that he hopes to rely on him now to help revive the sluggish economy.

"Our great ongoing challenge as a nation remains how to get this economy growing faster," Obama said. "Our challenge is to create a climate where more businesses can post job listings, where folks can find good work that relieves the financial burden they're feeling, where families can regain a sense of economic security in their lives."

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