The U.S. Senate this week voted, 69-26, to confirm economist Richard Clarida of Southport as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Clarida, an economics professor at Columbia University and global strategic advisor for Pacific Investment Management (PIMCO), previously served in the Bush administration as a top economic policy advisor to Treasury Secretaries Paul O’Neill and John W. Snow. Connecticut Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal voted in favor of his confirmation.
President Donald Trump nominated Clarida in April to serve a four-year term as vice chairman of the Fed. Clarida received a Ph.D. degree in economics from Harvard University, where he received the Alfred Sloan Dissertation Fellowship.
During his confirmation hearing in May, Clarida voiced support for Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s drive to raise rates from abnormally low levels and vowed to ignore political pressure from the president and elsewhere in deciding policy, according to Bloomberg News.
The Fed is expected to increase rates again next month, which will mark the sixth time since Trump took office that rates will have gone up.