What to expect out of Janet Yellen’s Senate confirmation hearing

Yahoo Finance’s Brian Cheung joins the Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss what to expect with Janet Yellen’s Senate confirmation hearing.

Video Transcript

BRIAN CHEUNG: Well, Janet Yellen, again, the former Fed Chair now receiving questions from the Senate Finance Committee, where she is scheduled to really offer her thoughts ahead of any sort of confirmation vote. She needs a simple majority to become the next Treasury Secretary under the Joe Biden administration. She's fielding questions from Mike Crapo right now in the Senate Finance Committee, just ticked off just about an hour or so ago. But Janet Yellen saying in her opening remarks, quote, neither the President-elect nor I proposed this relief package without an appreciation for the country's debt burden. But right now, with interest rates at historic lows, the smartest thing we can do is act big, end quote.

And usually in these types of nomination hearings, it's usually trying to field and try to figure out where this nominee is going and whether or not they can drum up the majority support to get confirmation. But this is less about her ability to secure confirmation, because she already did it as a Fed chair, and more really about her selling any sort of relief package that could be coming under the Biden administration in the first few days. Now, of course, this comes after the unveiling of that $1.9 trillion stimulus plan from Biden, which he unveiled last Thursday, but Yellen offering a little bit more granularity on that package.

So far, she said extending unemployment insurance and things like SNAP benefits could, quote, have a very large bang for the buck in that package. It will be interesting to see. As that hearing progresses, we'll have the full coverage of that right here on Yahoo Finance, Zack, Akiko.

- All right, Brian Cheung watching that. I'm sure you'll bring us headlines as we get them.