WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate Banking Committee on Thursday approved Princeton University economics professor and labor expert Alan Krueger to serve as the top White House economist.
The committee approved Krueger's nomination to head the White House Council of Economic Advisers on a voice vote. He must still be approved by the full Senate before he can take his post.
Krueger will play a central role in conceiving and selling President Barack Obama's efforts to spur job growth, which the president has described as a crucial challenge. Obama's public approval ratings have tumbled amid anxiety over unemployment and lackluster economic growth as he prepares to run for a second term in 2012.
If confirmed as CEA chairman, Krueger would be the third person to hold that post under Obama. He would take the place of Austan Goolsbee, who left the administration in August to return to a teaching job at the University of Chicago.
Krueger served in the Obama administration as a Treasury Department economist but left that job to return to Princeton. He has argued that raising the minimum wage could help employment rates.
His expertise in labor-market issues is in keeping with the administration's focus on jobs, but he has also done work on the economics of education, inequality and what breeds terrorism.
At Treasury, Krueger was assistant secretary for economic policy and chief economist. He is also a veteran of President Bill Clinton's administration, serving as chief economist for the Department of Labor from August 1994 to August 1995.
(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
