Jed David Kolko is an American economist serving as the

Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs The Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, or USC-EA, is a high-ranking official in the United States Department of Commerce that serves as the principal adviser to the United States Secretary of Commerce on economic analysis. The Unde ...

in the

Biden administration Joe Biden's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 46th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Joe Biden, his inauguration on January 20, 2021. Biden, a Democratic Party (United States), Democrat from Delaw ...

Early life and education

Kolko was raised in

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located i ...

. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in social studies and a PhD in economics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

Career

Kolko began his career as vice president and research director of

Forrester Research Forrester is a research and advisory company that offers a variety of services including research, consulting, and events. Forrester has nine North America locations: Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York, New York; San Francisco, California; M ...

. From 2006 to 2011, he was the associate director of research at the

Public Policy Institute of California The Public Policy Institute of California is an independent, non-profit research institution. Based in San Francisco, California, the institute was established in 1994 by Bill Hewlett, of Hewlett-Packard, Roger Heyns, and Arjay Miller, with a $ ...

. He was the chief economist and vice president of analytics for

Trulia Trulia is an American online real estate marketplace which is a subsidiary of Zillow. It facilitates buyers and renters to find homes and neighborhoods across the United States through recommendations, local insights, and map overlays that offer ...

from 2011 to 2015, research advisor for

Bloomberg Beta Bloomberg Beta is an early stage venture capital firm with $375M under management, capitalized solely by Bloomberg. The fund exists to expand Bloomberg’s horizons by investing in companies built by extraordinary founders that are creating prof ...

from 2015 to 2017, and an advisor at

Orbital Insight Orbital Insight is a Palo Alto, California-based geospatial analytics company. The company analyzes satellite, drone, balloon and other unmanned aerial vehicle images, including cell phone geolocation data, to study a range of human activity, a ...

from 2015 to 2019. Kolko has also been a senior fellow at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

Terner Center for Housing Innovation. He worked as the chief economist for

Indeed Indeed is an American worldwide employment website for job listings launched in November 2004. It is an independent subsidiary of multinational holding Recruit Co. Ltd. It is co-headquartered in Austin, Texas, and Stamford, Connecticut, with ad ...

from 2016 to 2022. Kolko has been featured as an economic specialist on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

, CNN, and

MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and politic ...

Biden administration

On September 13, 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Kolko to be Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs. Hearings were held on Kolko's nomination in the

Senate Commerce Committee The United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is a standing committee of the United States Senate. Besides having broad jurisdiction over all matters concerning interstate commerce, science and technology policy, a ...

on December 4, 2021. The committee favorably reported his nomination to the Senate floor on December 15, 2021. Kolko's initial nomination expired at the end of the year and was returned to President Biden on January 3, 2022. President Biden renominated Kolko the following day. On February 2, 2022, the committee favorably reported his nomination to the Senate floor. His nomination was confirmed by the entire Senate on April 7, 2022, via

voice vote In parliamentary procedure, a voice vote (from the Latin ''viva voce'', meaning "live voice") or acclamation is a voting method in deliberative assemblies (such as legislatures) in which a group vote is taken on a topic or motion by responding v ...

. He was sworn in by Secretary of Commerce

Gina Raimondo Gina Marie Raimondo (; born May 17, 1971) is an American politician, lawyer, and venture capitalist who has served as the 40th United States Secretary of Commerce since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the 75th g ...

on April 19, 2022.

Personal life

Kolko married Eric Rice, also an economist, in 2008. They live in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kolko, Jed Living people Economists from California Harvard University alumni Biden administration personnel United States Department of Commerce officials United States Under Secretaries of Commerce University of California, Berkeley people People from Rochester, New York Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American economists American LGBT politicians