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The
selection suggests public education will be a key area of focus
for Biden's brain-trust ahead of a 2024 re-election bid expected
to turn on the strength of the economy. The position does not
require Senate confirmation.
Jackson, who will take a leave from Northwestern University,
where he professor focused on economics, education and public
policy, is best known for research on what draws good teachers
to certain schools as well as other data showing that raising
school spending increased students' future wages.
The U.S. unemployment rate is at 3.5% and the economy grew at a
2.4% rate last quarter, while consumer prices are rising at a
3.2% annual clip.
While the Biden administration sees those numbers as a positive
sign of a move to steadier momentum with slower growth and
inflation, voters are largely dissatisfied with Biden's handling
of the economy, creating a challenge for his economic
policymakers.
Biden has argued that more U.S. government investment in early
childhood education programs like pre-school for three- and
four-year-olds would lift wages and decrease poverty, views that
agree with some of Jackson's own research.
But the president's efforts to dramatically increase such
funding have consistently failed to win sufficient support in
Congress.
Jackson's pick also comes as the Biden administration is
thinking through how to boost lagging educational performance
since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lengthy public school closures, staffing shortages and other
issues during that pandemic are believed to have contributed to
the sharp declines registered in U.S. children's reading and
mathematics test scores since 2020.
Cecilia Rouse, the Princeton University economist who used to be
Biden's CEA chair, said Jackson's work would be critical given
the country's biggest long-term economic challenges, including
an aging workforce, declining fertility rates, a lack of
childcare and learning loss.
"Coming out of this pandemic, one of the big consequences that
we will be addressing for some time is the learning loss," she
said. The choice of Jackson "may signal that the administration
is looking for creative ways to address what can be a huge loss
in human capital for this country for quite some time."
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Heather Timmons and
Andrea Ricci)
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