White House economist Goolsbee to leave post

WASHINGTON - The White House says Austan Goolsbee, a longtime adviser to President Barack Obama, will resign his post as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers this summer to return to teaching at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Goolsbee has been the face of the White House on economic news, and is a regular every first Friday of the month explaining the administration's take on the latest jobless numbers.

Goolsbee served on the three-member economic council since the start of the administration. He advised Obama during his 2004 Senate race and was senior economic policy adviser during the 2008 presidential campaign.

He took over last September as council chairman, replacing Christina Romer, who left to return to a teaching position at the University of California, Berkley.

Goolsbee will return to Chicago in time for the upcoming school year, the White House said in a press release.

"Since I first ran for the U.S. Senate, Austan has been a close friend and one of my most trusted advisers," President Obama said in the release. "Over the past several years, he has helped steer our country out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and although there is still much work ahead, his insights and counsel have helped lead us toward an economy that is growing and creating millions of jobs. — He is one of America's great economic thinkers."