Here’s who is on Biden’s new economic transition team

The first four members of Biden’s new economic transition team confirmed by the Washington Examiner are Jared Bernstein, a longtime Biden economic adviser, Don Graves, who advised Biden for many years, Cecilia Munoz, who was a senior staffer in the Obama White House, and Joelle Gamble, a Democratic organizer who interned at the Treasury Department in 2018.

Other prominent economists known to be advising the Biden campaign include Ben Harris and Heather Boushey. Harris served as chief economist to Biden when he was vice president and is now teaching at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Boushey is president of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a liberal nonprofit research organization. She also served as chief economist for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential transition team.

Here are mini biographies of each of the four members of Biden’s economic transition team:

Jared Bernstein

Jared Bernstein is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C.

Bernstein served as chief economist and economic adviser to Biden between 2009 and 2011. He was also executive director of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class and a member of Obama’s economic team.

Prior to joining the Obama administration, Bernstein was a senior economist and the director of the Living Standards Program at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington.

Between 1995 and 1996, he was the deputy chief economist at the Department of Labor during the Clinton administration.

He is the author of numerous economic books for both popular and academic audiences. Bernstein holds a doctorate in social welfare from Columbia University.

Bernstein, 64, is well liked by liberals, both progressives and centrists. He is known to be a skeptic of free trade and has focused much of his research and advocacy on low-income and middle-income workers.

Don Graves

Don Graves is head of corporate responsibility and community relations at KeyBank, a regional bank headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. In this role, Graves leads KeyBank’s $16.5 billion National Community Benefits Plan.

Previously, he served as deputy assistant to Obama and counselor to Biden. As Biden’s domestic and economic policy director, he provided advice on a range of policy issues, including ways to create jobs, opportunity, and help for the middle class. He was also Biden’s traveling chief of staff.

Before that, he led Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness at the White House and was also appointed to lead the administration’s efforts in Detroit, Michigan. He coordinated and facilitated the federal government’s investment in Detroit as the city worked through its bankruptcy and began its recovery.

Prior to joining the Obama administration, he was a partner with the law firm Graves, Horton, Askew & Johns and is the former director of public policy for the Business Roundtable.

Graves, 50, received his undergraduate degree in political science and history from Williams College and his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Graves, who is one of Biden’s highest-ranking black aides, is known to have Biden’s ear on economic matters because of his experience working in the private, public, and philanthropic sectors.

Cecilia Munoz

Cecilia Munoz was most recently the vice president for public interest technology and local initiatives at New America, a liberal think tank in Washington.

Prior to joining New America in 2017, she served for eight years on Obama’s senior staff, first as director of intergovernmental affairs and then as director of the domestic policy council for five years.

Before working in the administration, she was a senior vice president at the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic policy and advocacy organization, where she served for 20 years.

She received a MacArthur fellowship in 2000 for her work on immigration and civil rights, and she serves on the boards of liberal organizations, such as Open Society, the MacArthur and Kresge foundations, and the Protect Democracy Project, a nonprofit organization.

Munoz, 58, is the author of More than Ready: Be Strong and Be you….and other lessons for women of color on the rise, which was published in April 2020.

Munoz was the highest-ranking Hispanic official in the White House during much of the Obama administration and is known for her focus on the rights of immigrants, women, and minorities.

Joelle Gamble

Joelle Gamble is an economist and organizer who serves as a principal for the Reimagining Capitalism initiative at Omidyar Network, a philanthropic investment firm established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. She focuses on topics related to labor and economic policy.

Prior to joining Omidyar Network, Gamble worked on international economic priorities at the Department of the Treasury and assisted Princeton University faculty with labor economics research while pursuing her graduate degree.

Previously, she served as the national director of the Roosevelt Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington. At Roosevelt, she worked with public policy leaders to advance “bottom-up” advocacy campaigns related to economic justice and human rights in the United States.

Gamble has written extensively on the topics of race, labor, and technology, and her work has been featured in the Nation, Fox Business, NBC, and Fusion.

She received her undergraduate degree in international development studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, and she holds a master’s degree in economics and public policy from Princeton University.

Gamble is a millennial and a progressive who has argued that racism within institutions and public policy perpetuate racist outcomes. She is expected to represent the left wing of the Democratic Party within Biden’s economic team.