Time’s Person of the Year seen as putting Wall Street before Main Street.

Today, Time Magazine announced that its 2009 Person of the Year is Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Time justified the decision by saying that Bernanke “is the most important player guiding the world’s most important economy”:

His creative leadership helped ensure that 2009 was a period of weak recovery rather than catastrophic depression, and he still wields unrivaled power over our money, our jobs, our savings and our national future. The decisions he has made, and those he has yet to make, will shape the path of our prosperity, the direction of our politics and our relationship to the world.

While Bernanke absolutely played a huge role in responding to the recession and will greatly influence the U.S. recovery, his popularity with Time doesn’t extend to the general public. A new poll by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee found that, by more than 2 to 1, Americans think Bernanke puts Wall Street ahead of Main Street. And perhaps that’s because, while Bernanke has successfully rescued the financial system, he has done little with regard to the Fed’s mandate to maximize employment. As Atrios put it, “elites only care about one half of his mandate, price stability, but the rest of us care about the other part.” The Wonk Room has more on how Bernanke can boost employment and truly earn Person of the Year honors.