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J. Nellie Liang

Official · Treasury

Type
Person
Role
Official · Treasury
Updated
  • Pandemic-program role: Under Secretary for Domestic Finance; oversaw Treasury's Domestic Finance bureaus (recovery programs, financial institutions, Fiscal Service) during the relief recovery and wind-down phase. Arrived after PPP/EIDL lending had ended.
  • Institution · office: Treasury · Office of Domestic Finance · Type: political (PAS)
  • Tenure (relief-relevant): Confirmed July 2021 (senate.gov roll call 264 and congress.gov PN414); testifying as Under Secretary on the dates shown in the releases (Treasury releases jy1370, jy1373); served to January 2025 (Brookings profile).

The job (role mechanics)

  • Level / appointment: PAS, Senate-confirmed. Under Secretary for Domestic Finance = Executive Schedule III.
  • Reports to: Secretary of the Treasury (Janet L. Yellen), through the Deputy Secretary (Adewale O. "Wally" Adeyemo); the Under Secretary is the third-ranking Treasury official on the domestic-finance side.
  • Core responsibility: Lead the Office of Domestic Finance, which houses the Office of Financial Institutions, the Office of Recovery Programs (ARPA programs), federal financial-stability and debt-management policy, and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (federal payment systems).
  • Pay: Executive Schedule Level III; the OPM 2021-EX table lists Level III at $183,100 ; 5 U.S.C. 5314. No individual figure is documented.
  • Expectations / mandate: Advise on financial-system policy, federal debt management, and (during her tenure) administration of pandemic-recovery programs created by the American Rescue Plan Act.
  • Tenure norm: Serves at the pleasure of the President (political). Actual: from her July 2021 confirmation to January 2025.

Who they are

Jean Nellie Liang is an American economist who spent about three decades at the Federal Reserve Board, where she was the first Director of its Division of Financial Stability (Brookings profile).

Education

  • B.A., University of Notre Dame; Ph.D., University of Maryland (Brookings profile; degree years not in the capture).

Career before

  • About three decades at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, culminating as the first Director of the Division of Financial Stability (2010–2017) (Brookings profile).
  • Senior Fellow, Economic Studies / Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, Brookings Institution (post-Fed, pre-Treasury).
  • Nominated by President Trump to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in 2018 (congress.gov PN2543); withdrew in January 2019 (CNBC capture).

Role in the pandemic relief programs

  • Liang was confirmed in mid-2021 and did not run the 2020 CARES-era programs.
  • As Under Secretary she oversaw Domestic Finance during the recovery/wind-down phase, including the Office of Recovery Programs administering American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) relief, and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.

Documents written or signed

  • Congressional testimony as Under Secretary for Domestic Finance before the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee (the dates shown in the releases, Treasury releases jy1370 and jy1373).

Career after / where they are now

  • Term ended in January 2025 with the change of administration. Her successor in the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance seat is Jonathan McKernan.
  • Senior Fellow, Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, Brookings Institution (Brookings profile).

Sources held in this archive

Original source documents and archived captures

Sources (first-party)

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