Paul Volcker, 81, who was chairman of the Federal Reserve during the 1980s, has been appointed by President-elect Barack Obama to serve as head of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. The announcement was made at a Chicago news conference. Obama indicated that the board would include as a top staff official Austan Goolsbee, who is a University of Chicago economist.

Volcker has experience with economic crises, having led the Fed under presidents Carter and Reagan from 1979 to 1987. As a central banker, Volcker raised interest rates and restricted the money supply, and during that period America experienced one of its worst recessions.

Paul Volcker helped bring inflation under control, and his policies led to three decades of low inflation, a turnaround from the 1980s when inflation was out of control. “He pulls no punches,” Obama said of Volcker. “He seems to be fairly opinionated.”

On the same day that Obama announced the appointment of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, the government revealed that jobless claims had remained very high, while American consumers were cutting back on their spending. The economic crisis continues to get worse.