The White House announced Monday evening that Austan Goolsbee, the Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, will resign his post in the coming months.
Goolsbee will return to the University of Chicago, where he had been a professor for 14 years before joining the Obama administration, in time for the next school year.
Goolsbee is a longtime economic adviser to President Obama. He was confirmed to the CEA in March of 2009 and became chair in September of 2010. During that time, according to a press release from the White House, “the CEA focused on policies related to small business, education, innovation and competition, which are essential to ensuring long-term economic growth.”
He simultaneously served as the staff economist for the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. There, “he helped guide the Administration’s response to the economic crisis.”
Goolsbee was also a senior adviser to the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
“Working each day on behalf of the American people has been a rare privilege, particularly at such a historic time,” Goolsbee said in a statement. “While I am looking forward to returning home to Chicago, I will always be proud of the years I have spent working for this President. I believe that his judgment, his courage in confronting the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes, and his commitment to the American people have made a tremendous difference for the nation.”
Obama issued a statement expressing his gratitude to and respect for the economist.
“Since I first ran for the U.S. Senate, Austan has been a close friend and one of my most trusted advisers,” he said. “Over the past several years, he has helped steer our country out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and although there is still much work ahead, his insights and counsel have helped lead us toward an economy that is growing and creating millions of jobs. He is one of America’s great economic thinkers.”
Goolsbee’s resignation comes just days after the May Jobs Report was released, showing a 9.1 percent unemployment rate and a disappointingly low number of non-farm jobs added that month.