Jared Bernstein to Be Top VP Econ Advisor

We somehow missed the news (from last Friday) that VP-elect Joe Biden had picked Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Here’s what one of the WSJ blogs had to say:

Biden Picks Jared Bernstein as His Top Economics Adviser

Brad Haynes | December 5, 2008, 3:30 pm | WSJ Washington Wire

Vice President-elect Joe Biden picked Jared Bernstein,a prominent liberal economist, as his top economic adviser.

Bernstein expands the new administration’s chorus of economists with a voice clearly to the left of the centrist advisers announced so far. Bernstein was a deputy chief economist under President Bill Clinton’s Labor Secretary Robert Reich, and is now a senior economist at the union-funded Economic Policy Institute, where he has studied income inequality, low-wage labor markets and poverty.

Biden called Bernstein “a proven, passionate advocate for raising the incomes of middle class families,” in announcing him as his chief economist and economic policy adviser, a new post. “His expertise and background in a wide range of domestic and international economic policies will be an invaluable asset to the Obama-Biden Administration.”

In addition to his think tank reports and magazine articles , Bernstein has also been a consistent and occasionally cheeky blogger for the left-leaning Huffington Post and TPMCafe. Recent razzes include making fun of John McCain’s comments on the economy and a strident thumbs-down to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s proposed financial rescue plan in late September.