Raskin, Sworn In As Deputy Treasury Secretary, Makes History

WASHINGTON — Sarah Bloom Raskin was sworn in Friday as deputy secretary of the Treasury Department, after stepping down from her seat on the Federal Reserve Board.

Raskin was sworn in by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and is now the department's No. 2, succeeding Neal Wolin, who left in August.

Raskin had served as a Fed governor since 2010, and before that she was Maryland's commissioner of financial institutions. She has also worked for the Senate Banking Committee and at Promontory Financial Group.

During her Fed tenure, Raskin spoke out about the need to address income inequality, an issue recently highlighted by President Obama.

"This is a significant structural change in our economy that has been underway for a number of years," she said in an interview with American Banker last year. "A lot of people who were concentrated in the lower- and moderate-income levels... used the wealth that they had from their homes as a source of paying for college or opening a business or doing other things that normally would be [funded] with higher wages. And when the crisis hit, that form of wealth was wiped out."

Raskin achieved a landmark the moment she took her oath. She is the first woman to permanently serve as Treasury's No. 2.

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