Top White House economic adviser Larry Summers will return to Harvard's faculty after the midterms the White House announced today. Bloomberg was the first news service to report the news.
White House officials expect Lawrence Summers to leave his job as the president’s National Economic Council director after November’s congressional elections, according to three people familiar with the matter.
His departure would leave Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as the only member of President Barack Obama’s original top-tier economic team. Summers, 55, and the president have discussed his future plans, according to one person.
Administration officials are weighing whether to put a prominent corporate executive in the NEC director’s job to counter criticism that the administration is anti-business, one person familiar with White House discussions said. White House aides are also eager to name a woman to serve in a high-level position, two people said. They also are concerned about finding someone with Summers’ experience and stature, one person said.
The people familiar with White House discussions spoke on condition of anonymity because no decisions have been made.
Although Bloomberg doesn't note it, another key member of the economic team that will remain in place is Austan Goolsbee who replaced Christina Romer as head of the Council of Economic Advisers. The leak of the news to Bloomberg and the suggestion that a business leader may take Summers place suggest that the administration hopes to downplay any speculation that Summers' departure will represent a major shift in economic policy from the administration.
Just yesterday the National Bureau of Economic research the Bush recession officially ended in June, 2009. That recession began in December, 2007 and by the time President Obama signed the stimulus (edit: of which Summers was a key architect) into law, the unemployment rate was already closing in on 9%, having nearly doubled since the start of the recession.