A senior economic advisor to Joe Biden announced he is leaving the White House on the same day U.S. markets opened to significant losses, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging over 1,000 points just after the opening bell. Gene Sperling, who has overseen the implementation of the Biden-Harris government’s massive spending program and served as an economic advisor in the Obama and Clinton governments, will join Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
Sperling’s move is likely part of an effort to bolster Kamala Harris’s economic policy agenda—a weak spot for the 2024 Democratic Party presidential nominee. However, while serving in the Biden-Harris government, Sperling was tasked with overseeing the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan—the Democrats’ pandemic aid package—which set off rampant inflation in the U.S.
While senior aides leaving the White House in the closing days of a presidential administration is not unusual, the departure of a top economic advisor during the midst of the market sell-off and mounting recession fears could further exacerbate economic volatility. Monday saw chaos in Asian markets as Japan’s Nikkei 225 index plummeted by an unprecedented 4,451 points. The panic was seemingly set off by last week’s U.S. jobs report, which saw employment numbers coming in far below expectations. Combined with the Federal Reserve again declining to slash interest rates, the rising unemployment rate has sparked recession fears in the Biden-Harris economy.
