President Joe Biden announced Monday that he’s nominating Jerome Powell for a second four-year term as Federal Reserve chair, endorsing Powell’s stewardship of the economy through a brutal pandemic recession in which the Fed’s ultra-low rate policies helped bolster confidence and revitalise the job market.

Biden also said he would nominate Lael Brainard, the lone Democrat on the Fed’s board of governors and the preferred alternative to Powell among many progressives, as vice chair.

The President said he will fill the three remaining slots on the board, including a vice chair for supervision, a bank regulatory post, in early December.

Biden’s decision strikes a note of continuity and bipartisanship at a time when surging inflation is burdening households and raising risks to the economy’s recovery.

In backing Powell, a Republican who was first elevated to his post by President Donald Trump, Biden brushed aside complaints from progressives that the Fed has weakened bank regulation.