Jerome H. Powell, the 67-year-old chair of the Federal Reserve, will face stress from all sides in 2021, and he might discover himself auditioning for his personal job. His time period expires in early 2022, which signifies that President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will select whether or not to renominate him.

Mr. Powell, a Republican who was made a Fed governor by President Barack Obama and elevated to his present place by President Trump, has but to say publicly whether or not he needs to be reappointed, reports The New York Times’s Jeanna Smialek.

His possibilities might be affected by the Fed’s coronavirus disaster response, which has been credited as early and swift.

“We crossed numerous purple strains that had not been crossed earlier than,” Mr. Powell said at an event in Could.

The Fed rolled out practically the complete menu of emergency mortgage applications it used through the 2008 monetary disaster, and it teamed up with the Treasury Division to announce applications that had by no means been tried — together with plans to help lending to small and medium-size companies and purchase company debt. In early April, it tacked on a plan to get credit score flowing to states.

However the Fed’s extraordinary actions in 2020 weren’t aimed solely at protecting credit score flowing. Mr. Powell and different high Fed officers pushed for extra authorities spending to assist companies and households, an uncharacteristically daring stance for an establishment that tries mightily to keep away from politics. Because the Fed took a extra expansive view of its mission, it weighed in on local weather change, racial fairness and different points its leaders had usually prevented.

In Washington, reactions to the Fed’s greater position have been swift and divided. Democrats need the Fed to do extra, portraying the eye to climate-related monetary dangers as a welcome step however just a beginning. Republicans have labored to limit the Fed to make sure that the position it has performed on this pandemic doesn’t outlast the disaster.