Jerome Powell

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Powell led the Fed through the COVID-19 crisis, rising inflation, and political battles over the central bank’s independence.

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Jerome Powell is a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), the central bank of the United States, and served as its chair from 2018 to 2026. Nominated by U.S. President Donald Trump in 2017 and confirmed by the Senate the following year, he oversaw the Fed’s extensive intervention in the U.S. economy during the COVID-19 crisis of 2020, when the central bank slashed interest rates to near zero and launched massive lending and asset-purchase programs to stabilize financial markets. The New York Times called him “Washington’s Best-Liked Man” and Bloomberg News dubbed him “Wall Street’s Head of State.” Over time, however, Powell drew sharp criticism from across the political spectrum, particularly over interest-rate policy and financial regulation.

Powell was born February 4, 1953, in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, the second of six children. His father was an attorney who represented steel companies in union talks, and his mother was a mathematician and statistician who worked part time for the Republican National Committee.

Like his father, Powell attended Georgetown Preparatory School, the elite Jesuit boarding and day school from which Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh also graduated. Powell received a bachelor’s degree in politics from Princeton University in 1975 and earned a law degree from Georgetown University, where he served as editor of the Georgetown Law Journal, in 1979.

He then moved to New York City, where he clerked for a judge, worked for several law firms, and began investment banking, working for Dillon, Read & Co. from 1984 to 1990. He married Elissa Leonard in 1985; they have three children.

After Nicholas Brady, former chairman of Dillon, Read & Co., was tapped to serve as secretary of the U.S. Treasury, first under President Ronald Reagan and then under President George H.W. Bush, Powell joined him at the Treasury Department in 1990, serving as an assistant secretary for financial institutions and later as an undersecretary for domestic finance. At the end of the Bush presidency in 1993, Powell returned to investment banking, serving in roles at multiple organizations, including for eight years as a partner of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm. He was also, for two years, a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where he focused on federal and state fiscal policies. In 2012, President Barack Obama appointed him to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The Washington Post reported that, during Obama’s presidency, Powell, who goes by Jay, had “developed a reputation in Washington as a consensus builder who prefers to operate behind the scenes.”

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Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building, Washington, D.C.

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When Powell became head of the Fed in 2018, he was the richest Fed chair since the 1940s, with a net worth of $19.7 million to $55 million. He was expected to maintain the policies of his predecessor, Janet Yellen, including raising interest rates. Under Yellen, the Fed raised rates five times from the near-zero rates put in place after the 2007–08 financial crisis.

Powell’s efforts to raise interest rates further were met with resistance from President Donald Trump. Shortly after taking office, Powell oversaw his first interest rate increase of 0.25 percentage points. Trump publicly criticized Powell for raising interest rates, arguing the move would slow economic growth and undermine Trump administration policies, and discussed the possibility of removing Powell as Fed chair. Powell maintained that the rate hikes were necessary to prevent inflation and ensure long-term economic stability, and said he would not resign if asked.

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the financial crisis it spurred, forced Powell to change course on interest rates in the spring of 2020. Relying on key passages of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which outlined ways that the Fed could use its emergency powers in partnership with the Treasury, Powell slashed interest rates, introduced emergency loan programs, and purchased corporate debt. To some observers, these stimulus measures and joint ventures had fused the Fed and the Treasury in the most significant way since the 1950s. “We crossed a lot of red lines that had not been crossed before,” Powell said at an event in 2020.

After the shock of the COVID-19 crisis, the stock market and housing market boomed in 2020, though some observers were critical of Powell’s decisions. Critics argued that Powell had created an unstable financial situation, wherein the Fed’s policies mainly protected the wealthier segments of society—especially big companies and individuals who owned financial assets such as stocks and bonds—from the financial effects of the pandemic. “The Federal Reserve is always creative about helping Wall Street and corporations during crises, but workers get left behind,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, then the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. Economists labeled the situation a K-shaped recovery, wherein one segment of the economy improves while another declines (represented by the rising and declining arms of the letter K).

When Powell was up for reappointment in early 2022, inflation was soaring. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said keeping Powell in the position was “dangerous” because he had deregulated Wall Street. Five Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, also charged that Powell was not committed to “eliminating climate risk and advancing racial and economic justice.” Nevertheless, Powell was nominated for reappointment by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate that spring. His second term as chair ends on May 15, 2026.

To curb inflation, the Fed raised interest rates 10 times over 15 months in 2022 and 2023. By the summer of 2023, price increases had slowed, but Powell remained cautious, warning at the time that inflation could reaccelerate if policy eased too quickly. A year later, with inflation hovering just above 2%, he noted that many consumers were still feeling the strain and said, “It will be some time before people regain their confidence.”

Following Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election, tensions between Powell and the president-elect resurfaced publicly, renewing questions about the Federal Reserve’s independence. During a news conference, Powell said the outcome of the election would have “no effect” on rate decisions in the near term. When asked if he would resign if requested, Powell said, “No,” and that the president’s ability to fire or demote him is “not permitted under the law.”

As inflation eased and Powell reaffirmed the Fed’s independence following the 2024 election, political tensions surrounding his leadership grew. Although his term as chair runs through May 2026, officials in the Trump administration called for him to step down at its conclusion, and some Trump officials floated the idea of removing him early. Legal experts have noted that a Fed chair can’t be dismissed over policy disagreements and that any attempt to fire Powell without clear cause would likely provoke a legal and constitutional fight over the Fed’s independence.

In July 2025, the White House began publicly criticizing Powell over a $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed’s headquarters and an adjacent building, portraying the project as emblematic of mismanagement at the central bank. President Trump accused Powell of mismanaging the project and labeled the spending “disgraceful,” suggesting it could justify removal. Administration officials alleged that Powell had misrepresented the project’s scope and failed to resubmit revised plans to a local planning commission.

Powell disputed the claims, saying that elements like rooftop gardens and VIP dining rooms had been cut from earlier proposals. He asked the Fed’s independent inspector general to review the renovation process and reaffirmed the central bank’s legal independence from the White House.

By mid-2025, reports indicated that preparations for Powell’s successor were already underway, highlighting the pressure building during the final stretch of his tenure. By the end of the year, Kevin Hassett, Trump’s head of the National Economic Council, was widely mentioned as a possible successor.

In January 2026, federal prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into Powell related to his congressional testimony about the scope and costs of the renovations. Powell acknowledged the investigation in a rare public statement, calling it “unprecedented” and warning that it threatened the Fed’s independence. The White House denied any political motivation for the inquiry, while lawmakers from both parties criticized the move as improper political pressure as Powell’s term as chair neared its conclusion.

In April 2026, the Justice Department suddenly dropped its investigation, clearing the way for Kevin Warsh to succeed Powell. North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis had blocked the vote until the department dropped what the retiring Republican senator called a “bogus investigation.” Later that month, the Senate confirmed Warsh to succeed Powell.

Following a Federal Reserve policy meeting in late April 2026, Powell said he intended to remain on the Fed’s Board of Governors after his term as chair ends in May, citing concerns that legal challenges from the administration could undermine the central bank’s independence. He added, “I’m waiting for the investigation to be well and truly over with finality and transparency.”