Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen confirmed Monday she will leave the Fed entirely next year.
Yellen's four-year term as chair expires in February, but she could have stayed on the Board of Governors until 2024. Now Yellen says she'll step down from the board as well. Current Governor Jerome Powell has been nominated to replace her.
During her tenure, Yellen oversaw the first interest rate hikes at the bank in almost a decade, as well as a period of slow but steady growth and shrinking unemployment. However, the bank hasn't been able to hit its inflation target of 2 percent.
President Donald Trump announced in early November that he'd tapped Powell to replace Yellen, breaking a recent precedent of new presidents extending the term of the incumbent Fed chair.
Yellen's departure will leave Trump with three empty seats on the governors board and a vice chair position to fill. Besides Powell, there is only one Obama-era appointee left on the Fed's board.
