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Time Magazine names Ben Bernanke 'Person of the Year'

Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, has been named 'Person of the Year' by Time Magazine, fighting off competition from President Obama and Steve Jobs.

Ben Bernanke will face tough challenges in his second term as Fed chairman
Ben Bernanke will face tough challenges in his second term as Fed chairman

The 56-year secured the title because “he was the great scholar of the Depression, and he saw what looked like another depression coming and he decided he would do whatever it takes to forestall that,” according to Time's managing editor Richard Stengel.

Mr Bernanke, who succeeded Alan Greenspan in the most powerful job in the world economy, has unleashed a radical series of policies over the past two years to keep the world's biggest economy from tipping into another depression.

Time picked the former academic over President Barack Obama; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and chief executive officer; the Chinese worker, an “increasingly influential group”; General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan; and Jamaican sprinter and Olympic gold-medalist Usain Bolt.

The award comes as America pulls out of its worst recession since the Great Depression that Bernanke taught students about at Princeton University. However, the US unemployment rate has jumped to 10pc and economists fear that the strength of recovery next year will not be enough to create jobs next year.

Mr Stengel said that one of Mr Bernanke's responsibilites is "to put full employment in society and he hasn’t really stepped up on that. But in terms of influence and how the economy went this year, Bernanke was the guy.”

Time magazine began the annual “Person of the Year” cover story in 1927 with Charles Lindbergh, the aviator who made the first solo trans-Atlantic flight.