Colombian American economist Adriana Kugler was confirmed Thursday by the U.S. Senate as a Federal Reserve governor, the first Latina to join the Fed Board in its 109-year history.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., a senior member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, said in a speech advocating for her confirmation of her that fellow senators had the chance to alter the course of American history.
“To hear her tell her story of her is to listen to the American dream come to life,” Menendez said of the Kugler, whose parents immigrated from Colombia.
Kugler, 53, an expert on labor and international economics, is the World Bank’s group executive director for the United States. She took a leave from Georgetown University, where she is professor of public policy and economics since 2010 and also served as vice provost.
Kugler was also the Labor Department’s chief economist from September 2011 to January 2013, under President Barack Obama.
Menendez said Kugler has demonstrated that she would uphold the Federal Reserve’s long legacy of independent decision-making, the type of decisions that affect every community in the country. He said it makes him especially proud that Kugler “will finally bring the lived experience of being Latino in the United States to the Federal Reserve.”
The senator noted that the absence of a Latino in the century-long history of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors is an “affront” to the 62 million Hispanics in the country and out of step with the fact that the Latino economic input is nearly $3 trillion. It “violates the idea that the hopes and dreams of Latinos are essential to America,” he said.
“Never again should a Latino or Latina wonder if they can rise from humble beginnings to hold seats of power,” Menendez added.
Kugler has researched worker training in the U.S. and Colombia and recently focused on the effects in the U.S. of extended unemployment benefits in the past few years. Her study of her found that the additional aid during the pandemic helped people take more time to find jobs that fit their skills and qualifications, and raised their wages.
Kugler earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
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