Jon Donenberg – a key architect of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s signature policy initiatives including her plan to cancel student loan debt – will join President Joe Biden’s National Economic Council as a deputy director, sources told CNN.
Donenberg is poised to enter the top ranks of Biden’s economic team one year ahead of the 2024 election, as the administration is pushing to sell its record on the country’s post-pandemic economic turnaround and boost the public’s grim economic outlook. The move also comes as the White House has been focused on a suite of executive actions aimed at cutting costs for lower-income and middle-class Americans, such as cracking down on so-called “junk fees” and finding ways to cancel student loan debt after the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s initial plan.
Currently Warren’s chief of staff, Donenberg is set to start at the NEC early next month. He replaces Bharat Ramamurti, who left the administration earlier this year, and is expected to take over key issues that made up Ramamurti’s portfolio including student debt relief, financial regulations, economic competition and technology policy, sources said.
“What he’s always brought to the policy-making process is both very data-driven but also very much thinking about how we can create an economy that works with everyone,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, who has known Donenberg for nearly two decades, told CNN in an interview.
Adeyemo said he expects Donenberg to bring a “degree of creativity” to the job – much needed, he said, as the administration now works to implement some of the hallmark pieces of legislation that Biden signed into law in his first term, such as a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package and a sweeping climate, health care and tax bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act.
The administration is also focused on continuing to cancel student loan debt after it suffered a disappointing setback earlier this year when the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s signature loan forgiveness program.
Donenberg has worked for Warren since her first Senate campaign in Massachusetts in 2012 and is known to be among the senator’s closest confidantes. A Capitol Hill veteran, he also previously worked for former Rep. Henry Waxman and Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
Donenberg joins a sizable contingent of Warren alums and mentees who have taken on powerful economic policy-making roles in the Biden administration so far. That group includes Adeyemo, who worked with Warren to establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Ramamurti, who was a policy aide in Warren’s 2020 campaign; and Rohit Chopra, the current director of the CFPB.
“Jon is a superstar – and one of the nation’s foremost experts on the fight for an economy that works not just for some of our families, but for all of them,” Warren said in a statement to CNN. “His unique combination of technical, legal, and economic skills and judgment will make him an invaluable asset to the president.”
In an interview with CNN in 2019, Donenberg described Warren’s career as having been driven by the search for an answer to one question: “What is going wrong with America’s middle-class families?”
“Why are people working harder than they’ve ever worked before and not seeing raises and seeing their expenses go up? Why is their debt increasing? Why do they feel like opportunity for their kids is slipping away?” Donenberg said at the time.
Answers to some of those very questions may prove to be central to what ultimately shapes up to be Biden’s economic legacy.
In recent months, Biden’s top advisers have expressed optimism about several major economic trends – key among them, slowing inflation and a robust jobs growth. But public sentiment has yet to catch up, with polling continuing to show stubborn pessimism about the economy despite a string of positive economic news. Advisers acknowledge that more time is needed for Americans to move past the trauma of the Covid-19 pandemic and historic-high inflation.
“Jon brings a breadth of experience and a steadfast commitment to building an economy from the bottom up and middle out,” said NEC Director Lael Brainard. “His previous work on competition, consumer protection, and financial regulation makes him well equipped for this role.”
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