Experience
- Federal Reserve Bank of New York
- MKP Capital Management
Expertise
- Macroeconomic policy
- Labor and workforce dynamics
- Inflation and the Federal Reserve
Education
- Columbia University, J.D., B.S., B.A.
Recent Coverage
FEB 4, 2026
Fortune: Hiring just hit a level not seen since the economy was shut down during COVID, top economist says
Skanda Amarnath, executive director of Employ America, an economic strategy firm, said bad weather and health care strikes explain part of the February drop, but not all of it. “We can probably attribute 50% to 60% to just kind of the one-offs,” he told Fortune. “But there’s something fundamental at play, too.” He pointed to reduced immigration as one factor quietly draining dynamism from the system: Less population growth means less churn, fewer people switching jobs, and fewer new hires.
FEB 4, 2026
Politico: Why Trump’s Federal Reserve Pick May Surprise Him
Skanda Amarnath, the executive director of worker advocacy group Employ America and a critic of Warsh, pointed out that past Fed chairs who have weathered severe economic crises — like Powell during the Covid pandemic and Bernanke following 2008 — didn’t avoid politics altogether, but cultivated credibility on both sides of the aisle. “In a crisis, you want someone who can be trusted by a broad set of actors — not just the White House, not just your partisan comfort audience,” Amarnath said. Yet Amarnath said that Warsh’s more partisan lines of critique have damaged his credibility outside of Republican circles. “He’s someone who almost has made his career — and it was probably the correct career play — [thinking] ‘I’ve got to shore up the politics first,’” Amarnath said. “But at what cost?”
FEB 3, 2026
NPR: America’s Next Top Fed Chair
Kevin Warsh has been tapped as the next chair of the Federal Reserve. We’re sure that he’ll have a lot of questions about how to run the Fed if confirmed. So we put together this briefing. On today’s show, three Fed watchers [including Skanda Amarnath] give their advice for the next chair. On politics, interest rate cuts and dealing with the Fed’s repeated trading scandals. Oh, and can someone please forward this episode to Kevin Warsh?
JAN 30, 2026
Bloomberg’s Odd Lots: Lots More with Skanda Amarnath on the Risks of Kevin Warsh
On this episode, we talk with Skanda Amarnath, Executive Director of Employ America, who walks us through Warsh’s history of commenting on and executing monetary policy. He argues that in addition to having gotten some big calls wrong (particularly in the years surrounding the GFC), Warsh has a history of aligning his policy views with partisan consideration. We also talk about the challenges Warsh will have establishing credibility within the FOMC, as well as challenges that may arise the next time the Fed has to step in during a period of crisis.
Interested in speaking with Skanda Amarnath?
About Skanda
Skanda Amarnath is the Executive Director of Employ America, a policy research organization focused on monetary, fiscal, and industrial-level policies for advancing full employment outcomes and addressing business cycle risks. He leads the organization’s work to design new industrial policy tools to fight inflation, including the successful revision of federal regulation to use existing statutory authorities for stockpile acquisition to flexibly support supply-side responses. Before leading the organization, Amarnath served as Employ America’s Director of Research & Analysis, where he focused primarily on Federal Reserve policy.
