Jared Bernstein

Jared Bernstein
Bernstein testifying before the US Senate, May 26, 2005
Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser for the Vice President of the United States
In office January 20, 2009 – 2011
Vice President	Joe Biden
Personal details
Born	1955
Alma mater	Manhattan School of Music, Hunter College, Columbia University

Jared Bernstein (born 1955) is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. From 2009 to 2011, Bernstein was the Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden in the Obama Administration. Bernstein's appointment was considered to represent a progressive perspective and "to provide a strong advocate for workers".

Born to a Jewish-American family, Bernstein graduated with a bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from the Manhattan School of Music where he studied double bass with Orin O'Brien. He earned a master's degree in Social Work from the Hunter College School of Social Work, and, from Columbia University, he received a master's degree in Philosophy and a Ph.D. in Social Welfare.

Bernstein has taught at Howard University, Columbia University and New York University. His areas of interest include "federal, state and international economic policies, specifically the middle class squeeze, income inequality and mobility, trends in employment and earnings, low-wage labor markets, poverty, and international comparisons." He is known as a critic of free trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

In 1992, Bernstein started working as a senior official at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a liberal think tank with a focus on issues affecting low- and middle-income working people. From 1995 to 1996, he served in the United States Department of Labor as Deputy Chief Economist. He then returned to the EPI, as senior economist and director of the Living Standards Program, until he was selected by Biden. His designated job on the Vice Presidential staff is a new position, created because of "the critical nature of the economic challenges facing America." Upon his appointment, some journalists claimed that it "contrasts sharply with the more centrist views of many of president-elect Barack Obama's economic advisers.