Please stay tuned for important disclosure information at the conclusion of this episode.

Hi, and welcome to the Longview.

I'm Amy Arnott, portfolio strategist for Morningstar.

And I'm Ben Johnson, head of client solutions for Morningstar.

Our guest on the podcast today is Claudia Somm.

Claudia is chief economist at New Century Advisors, the founder of SOM Consulting, and a regular contributor at Bloomberg Opinion. She has policy and research expertise in macroeconomics, consumer spending, and household finance. She created the sound rule and

automatic trigger for stimulus payments in recessions. Previously, she was a section chief at the

Federal Reserve, where she oversaw the survey of household economics and decision making. Before that,

she worked for 10 years on the staff's macroeconomic

forecast. She was a senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers. She holds a Ph.D. in

economics from the University of Michigan and a bachelor's degree in economics, political science,

and German from Denison University.

Claudia, welcome to the Longview.

Oh, I'm so excited to be here today. Thank you.

We wanted to start out by talking a little bit about your background.

You went to the University of Michigan for your PhD,

and I'm curious, how did you end up working at the Federal Reserve right after you finished

your PhD in 2007?

So Michigan has a very strong program in macroeconomics, but in particular, and applied macroeconomics,

so really research studying the Fed

and kind of what's happening in the economy.

Michigan, I also benefited from having a lot of training

...