Yellen has announced her intention to name a “very senior-level” official to monitor Treasury’s climate work.
On both climate change and green energy, Yellen has talked about the importance of multilateral agreements – a big switch from the last four years. Also on a global scale, the Secretary is in active talks with her counterparts in more than 140 countries regarding setting a global minimum rate for corporate taxes – this to prevent multinational corporations from shopping for the lowest rate by playing countries off of one another.
Back on the domestic front, although the Secretary is no fan of Bitcoin, she has indicated interest in the possibility of a central bank digital currency.
And she has affirmed that Treasury will be playing a key role in Biden’s Build Back Better package, which will include repairing infrastructure, creating good jobs, providing educational opportunities from early childhood through labor force development, supporting families with meaningful child care and paid leave initiatives and – crucially – addressing racial inequality.
Right now, Yellen is keeping close tabs on the rollout of the American Rescue Plan, and working to ensure that the relief will reach the people who need it most. Just days after her confirmation, Yellen joined Vice President Kamala Harris in a virtual meeting with members of the National Black Chamber of Commerce.
The Secretary began her remarks by sharing a memory from her first economics class in college back in 1963. Her professor presented economic data that showed the average black family possessed roughly 15% of the wealth of an average white family – more than a 6 to 1 difference.
“Jim Crow was still in effect, so maybe that’s not surprising,” Yellen said. “What is surprising, though, is that it is now more than half a century later and that 6 to 1 number has barely budged.”
Noting that economic crises historically have affected people of color harder and longer than their white counterparts, Yellen vowed that this time was going to be different. Biden’s American Rescue Plan, she said, would “make sure that this pandemic isn’t another generational setback for racial equality.”
“We’re really learning lessons from the failures of the first round [of stimulus funding],” she told the gathering.
Last fall, the Trump administration had set up CARES Act funding in a way that favored big business. Considering that the most recent Census numbers counted 27.9 million small businesses compared to 18,500 large companies (500 employees are more), that doesn’t make a lot of sense.
With new leadership this time around, there’s a new set of priorities in place. Recently passed legislation provides a $12 billion infusion of funds to Community Development Financial Institutions and Minority Depository Institutions that interact more directly with Main Street businesses and particularly minority-owned businesses. And a much more concerted effort is being made to help small businesses cut through any red tape.
Just as Alexander Hamilton endeavored to set the United States up for future success, Yellen is also looking to what will put this country on a sustainable long-term track – and for it to be sustainable, it also has to be equitable.
She doesn’t claim to be able to smite revenue out of rocks but, as she said at her confirmation hearings earlier this year, “The Treasury Secretary has to be a voice for fiscal sanity.”
Barbara Lloyd McMichael is a freelance writer living in the Pacific Northwest.