Joe Biden Taps Janet Yellen As Treasury Secretary In Historic Pick — Meet Her Husband, George Akerlof
The couple that does economics together, stays together, so the saying goes.
Alex Gakos / Shutterstock President-elect Joe Biden has tapped famed economist Janet Yellen to fill the role of U.S. Treasury Secretary in a history-making pick.
Yellen will be the first woman to hold the position since the Treasury Department was founded in 1789, but this isn’t the first glass ceiling the 74-year-old economist has shattered in her lifetime.
Yellen was the 18th Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, was also the chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 - 2018, and was nominated by Barack Obama for the position.
Donald Trump did not reappoint her after her term, which probably comes as a shock to absolutely no one.
Yellen’s husband, George Akerlof, has been by her side through it all, and will undoubtedly cheer her on when she steps into her new role as Treasury Secretary in 2021.
Who is Janet Yellen’s husband, George Akerlof?
Here’s what you need to know about the man who has been by her side for the past 42 years, her husband, George Akerlof.
Janet Yellen and George Akerlof met at a luncheon in 1977.
The pair met at a luncheon in 1977, and began their whirlwind romance that’s still going strong today.
“Not only did our personalities mesh perfectly, but we have also always been in all but perfect agreement about macroeconomics,” Akerlof wrote in an autobiography. “Our lone disagreement is that she is a bit more supportive of free trade than I,” he added.
They’ve been married for over four decades.
Talk about going the distance!
Janet Yellen and George Akerlof got married less than a year after meeting, and have been married for 42 years.
George Akerlof is a Nobel Prize winner.
Akerlof was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001, and became UC Berkeley's 18th Nobel Prize winner at the time.
"George Akerlof's Nobel prize is richly deserved," his colleague said of his title.
“His work has profound implications for the organization and regulation of important real markets such as the labor market, the market for health insurance, and markets for financial commodities,” he added.
George Akerlof and Janet Yellen’s son is also an economist.
Economics clearly runs in the family!
George and Janet’s son, Robert Akerlof, is an Economics professor at the University of Warwick, which is located in England.
According to his bio page, his research interests include Sociology and Economics, Applied Microeconomic Theory, and Organizational Economics.
Those close to George Akerlof describe him as a “creative” person.
Jim Adams, who’s known Akerlof since 1973, said of his friend, “George is an incredibly creative person. He just has such unusual ideas by the standards of a very buttoned-down discipline where there is conformism, as is economics these days.”
“He is not afraid to be unorthodox and off-beat in the service of real intellectual exploration,” he added.
Olivia Jakiel is an editor and writer who covers celebrity and entertainment news. Follow her on Instagram and keep up with her zingers on Twitter.