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**JUNE 9, 2023**
Kuttner on TAP
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**** Remembering William Spriggs
A life devoted to pursuing economic justice
Our friend and colleague Bill Spriggs died early this week, much too
young at age 68. Bill, a
**Prospect** board member and occasional contributor
<[link removed]> of articles to our
magazine, was one of the great economists of his generation.
Bill had a number of positions in government, including as assistant
secretary of labor under President Obama, and as chief economist of the
AFL-CIO. But he felt that his most important lifetime accomplishment was
his role as a teacher and mentor to aspiring Black economists. He served
as the longtime chair of the economics department at Howard University;
and no matter what other positions he took, Bill kept his professorship
there so that he could continue that calling.
Larry Mishel, who was a colleague of Bill's when both worked at the
Economic Policy Institute, was a friend since they were in graduate
school together at Madison beginning in the late 1970s. Bill was the
only Black student in their entering cohort. Larry has written:
He also stood out because of his mission. He wanted to become the best
economist he could and then use those skills to advance Black people and
to become a professor at an HBCU.
Other students saw economics training as a time to gather "tools" for
future work (as if they were engineers) or to be replicas of some
specific professor. Not Bill. He wrote his dissertation (getting an
award from NEA!) on Black wealth accumulation in Virginia, research
which required him to visit county courthouses to collect data. There
were easier topics and research paths, but Bill did not follow them.
Bill later worked for the Joint Economic Committee, and for both the
Clinton and Obama administrations. He was on the short list of possible
appointees to the Fed Board of Governors. He was past president of the
National Economic Association and is the current president-elect of the
Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA).
Bill's research topics included the multiple impacts of occupational
and residential segregation, monetary policy and the Fed, labor policy
and income distribution, trade, Social Security and social insurance,
and how all of these issues interacted. He always had outside-the-box
ideas for remedies and political coalitions to bring them about. He was
a superb technical economist as well as a political economist in the
best sense.
But the thing that made Bill Spriggs most special, from my experience,
was his personal sweetness and generosity blended with political
toughness and commitment. Valerie Wilson, who directs EPI's much
acclaimed Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy, has written:
I owe my career as an economist to my friend and mentor, Bill Spriggs.
Not only did he convince me to finish graduate school, but when Bill
hired me for my first job as a research analyst at the National Urban
League, he would often tell me that I was his retirement policy.
Bill gave meaning to those words by selflessly giving his time,
incredible intellect, wisdom, and personal connections while advocating
for me on numerous occasions. I learned so much of what I know about
economics and economic policy from Bill Spriggs, but more than that, I
learned to lead with principles and purpose.
President Biden put it well
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when he said:
Bill was a towering figure in his field, a trailblazer who challenged
the field's basic assumptions about racial discrimination in labor
markets, pay equity, and worker empowerment. His work inspired countless
economists, some of whom work for our Administration, to join him in the
pursuit of economic justice ... Along with these remarkable
contributions and achievements, Bill will be missed for his kindness,
warmth, and humility.
Few people can be described as irreplaceable. Bill Spriggs was one.
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
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