The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is a United States agency within the Executive Office of the President established in 1946, which advises the president of the United States on economic policy. In addition, the CEA provides much of the empirical research for the White House and prepares the publicly-available annual Economic Report of the President. The council is made up of its chairperson and generally one to two additional members. Its chairperson requires appointment and Senate confirmation, and its other members are appointed by the president.

Activities

Economic Report of the President The report is published by the CEA annually in February, no later than 10 days after the budget of the US government is submitted. The president typically writes a letter introducing the report, serving as an executive summary. The report proceeds with several hundred pages of qualitative and quantitative research reviewing the impact of economic activity in the previous year, outlining economic goals for the coming year (based on the president's economic agenda), and making numerical projections of economic performance and outcomes. The data referenced or used in the report are from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

History

Establishment The Truman administration established the Council of Economic Advisers via the Employment Act of 1946 to provide presidents with objective economic analysis and advice on the development and implementation of a wide range of domestic and international economic policy issues. It was a step from an "ad hoc style of economic policy-making to a more institutionalized and focused process". The act gave the council the following goals:

In 1949 Chairman Edwin Nourse and member Leon Keyserling argued about whether the advice should be private or public and about the role of government in economic stabilization.Remarks by Chairman Alan Greenspan. Receipt of the Truman Medal for Economic Policy. Before the Truman Medal Award and Economics Conference, Kansas City, Missouri October 26, 2005, Council of Economic Advisers website under President Bush Nourse believed a choice had to be made between "guns or butter" but Keyserling argued for deficit spending, asserting that an expanding economy could afford large defense expenditures without sacrificing an increased standard of living. In 1949, Keyserling gained support from Truman advisors Dean Acheson and Clark Clifford. Nourse resigned as chairman, warning about the dangers of budget deficits and increased funding of "wasteful" defense costs. Keyserling succeeded to the chairmanship and influenced Truman's Fair Deal proposals and the economic sections of NSC 68 that, in April 1950, asserted that the larger armed forces America needed would not affect living standards or risk the "transformation of the free character of our economy".Brune 1989

1950s–80s During the 1953–54 recession, the CEA, headed by Arthur Burns, deployed non-traditional neo-Keynesian interventions, which provided results later called the "steady fifties" wherein many families stayed in the economic "middle class" with just one family wage-earner. The Eisenhower administration supported an activist contracyclical approach that helped to establish Keynesianism as a possible bipartisan economic policy for the nation. Especially important in formulating the CEA response to the recession—accelerating public works programs, easing credit, and reducing taxes—were Arthur F. Burns and Neil H. Jacoby.Engelbourg 1980

Until 1963, during its first seven years the CEA made five technical advances in policy making, including the replacement of a "cyclical model" of the economy by a "growth model", the setting of quantitative targets for the economy, use of the theories of fiscal drag and full-employment budget, recognition of the need for greater flexibility in taxation, and replacement of the notion of unemployment as a structural problem by a realization of a low aggregate demand.Salant 1973

The 1978 Humphrey–Hawkins Full Employment Act required each administration to move toward full employment and reasonable price stability within a specific time period. It has been criticized for making CEA's annual economic report highly political in nature, as well as highly unreliable and inaccurate over the standard two or five year projection periods.Cimbala and Stout 1983

1980–present

Since 1980, the CEA has focused on sources of economic growth, the supply side of the economy, and on international issues. In the wake of the Great Recession of 2008–09, the Council of Economic Advisers played a significant role in supporting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

On March 12, 2025, Stephen Miran was confirmed as President Trump's nominee to be the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Organization

The council's chairman is nominated by the president and confirmed by the United States Senate. The members are appointed by the president. As of July 2017, the council's eighteen person staff consisted of a chief of staff (Director of Macroeconomic Forecasting), fifteen economists (five senior, four research, four staff economists, two economic statisticians) and two operations staff.Council of Economic Advisers. Staff Whitehouse.gov, n.d. accessed 29 July 2017 Many of the staff economists are academics on leave or government economists on temporary assignment from other agencies.

Composition Chairs

ImageNameStartEndPresident(1945–1953)(1953–1961)(1961–1963)(1963–1969)(1969–1974)(1974–1977)(1977–1981)(1981–1989)(1989–1993)(1993–2001)(2001–2009)(2009–2017)(2017–2021)(2021–2025)(2025–present)Christopher PhelanIncumbent

Chief Economist Keith Hall 2005-2008 Michael Greenstone 2009–2010 Matthew Fiedler 2015–2017 Casey B. Mulligan 2018–2019 Joshua D. Rauh 2019–2020 Kevin Corinth 2020–2021 Ernie Tedeschi 2023–2024 Aaron Hedlund 2025-2026 Brian Wheaton 2026-present Graham Newell 2026-present

Presidentially Appointed Members

John D. Clark 1946–1953 Roy Blough 1950–1952 Leon Keyserling 1950–1953 Robert C. Turner 1952–1953 Karl A. Fox 1953–1955 Neil H. Jacoby 1953–1955 Asher Achinstein 1954–1956 Walter W. Stewart 1953–1955 Joseph S. Davis 1955–1958 Paul W. McCracken 1956–1959 Karl Brandt 1958–1961 Henry C. Wallich 1959–1961 James Tobin 1961–1962 Kermit Gordon 1961–1962

John P. Lewis 1963–1964 Otto Eckstein 1964–1966 James S. Duesenberry 1966–1968 Merton J. Peck 1968–1969 Warren L. Smith 1968–1969 Paul Wonnacott 1968-1970, 1991-1993 Hendrik S. Houthakker 1969–1971 Herbert Stein 1969–1971 Ezra Solomon 1971–1973 Marina von Neumann Whitman 1972–1973 Gary L. Seevers 1973–1975 William J. Fellner 1973–1975 Paul. W. MacAvoy 1975–1976 Burton G. Malkiel 1975–1977 William D. Nordhaus 1977–1979 Lyle E. Gramley 1977–1980 George C. Eads 1979–1981 Stephen Goldfeld 1980–1981 William A. Niskanen 1981–1985 Jerry L. Jordan 1981–1982 William Poole 1982–1985 Thomas Gale Moore 1985–1989 Michael L. Mussa 1986–1988 John B. Taylor 1989–1991 Richard L. Schmalensee 1989–1991 David F. Bradford 1991–1993 Paul Wonnacott 1991–1993 Alan S. Blinder 1993–1994 Carolyn Fischer 1994-1995 Joseph Stiglitz 1993–1995 Martin N. Baily 1995–1996 Alicia H. Munnell 1996–1997 Jeffrey A. Frankel 1997–1999 Rebecca Blank 1998–1999 Yu-Chin Chen 1999–2000 Robert Z. Lawrence 1999–2001 Kathryn L. Shaw 2000–2001 Mark B. McClellan 2001–2002 Randall S. Kroszner 2001–2003 Kristin Forbes 2003–2005 Harvey S. Rosen 2003–2005 Katherine Baicker 2005–2007 Matthew J. Slaughter 2005–2007 Donald B. Marron Jr. 2008–2009 Cecilia Rouse 2009–2011 Carl Shapiro 2011–2012 Katharine Abraham 2011–2013 James H. Stock 2013–2014 Betsey Stevenson 2013–2015 Maurice Obstfeld 2014–2015 Jay Shambaugh 2015–2017 Sandra Black 2015–2017 Richard Burkhauser 2017–2019 Tomas J. Philipson 2017–2020 Tyler Goodspeed 2019–2021 Heather Boushey 2021–2025 Jared Bernstein 2021–2023 Kirabo Jackson 2023–2025 Pierre Yared 2025–2026 Kim Ruhl 2025–2026 Aaron Hedlund 2026–present Christopher Phelan 2026–Present

References

Sources

External links

List of reports by the Council of Economic Advisors, 2017-2021 Records of the Office of the Council of Economic Advisors, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, 1953–61 Papers of Arthur F. Burns, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library Papers of Raymond J. Saulnier, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library Economic Report of the President: Economic Report of the President, 2009–2017 Economic Reports 1947 to present on FRASER, St. Louis Federal Reserve U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) ' U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Economic Report of the President (1995–present) United States Government Publishing Office