The first black woman to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Shalanda Young officially takes her position at the agency’s helm.
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Shalanda Young, who hails from a small town in Louisiana, has been working as OMB’s acting leader since March 2021. Around a year later, on Tuesday the 15th, she received bipartisan approval from the Senate with a final confirming vote of 61-36. This officially made her the first black woman to assume the head office at OMB.
Young received her nomination for the position of OMB director from the Biden administration in November, and she has since become a new mom with the birth of her daughter in February. At the time of her nomination, President Biden remarked that she “earned the trust, respect, and admiration of democrats and republicans alike.”
There are approximately 4,000 federal jobs that are appointed by the President’s office, and more than 1,200 of these require confirmation from the Senate. Young’s confirmation is one of just 300 of these positions that have been filled under the current White House, which originally had a different choice for OMB director, Neera Tanden. However, back in February 2021, Tanden’s nomination was withdrawn as it appeared she did not have Senate support from Democrat Joe Manchin and Republicans such as Mitt Romney and Susan Collins. The prominent reasons for opposition to Tanden appear to stem from tweets she released during the previous administration’s time in office. The tweets in question referred to Senator Mitch McConnell as “Voldemort” and called Senator Collins “the worst.”
OPM (the Office of Personnel Management), led by Kiran Ahuja, and OMB are two vital agencies pertaining to the Federal workforce’s livelihood. Whereas OPM handles the administrative duties for a federal employee’s benefits - such as FEGLI, FEHB, and retirement under both CSRS and FERS - OMB is responsible for the federal government’s budget as a whole. This budget naturally includes funding for agencies, and that encompasses financial constraints weighing on a federal agency’s goals and tasks. A federal job itself is also supported by an agency’s budget, which OMB manages.
Directing the Federal Government’s budgetary office entails much more than addressing the pay of federal agencies, however. Young has expressed support for increasing the federal minimum wage, decreasing the nation’s citizens’ college debt, expanding Medicare eligibility, guaranteeing 12 weeks of parental leave for all American workers, and making more affordable childcare available across the country.
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