Dr. William E. Spriggs – Biographical Brief
Dr. William E. Spriggs became Chair of the Department, and a professor, of Economics at Howard University in Washington, DC in December 2005. In Fall 2008, he served on the Agency Review Team for the Department of Labor for the transition efforts of President Obama. In the spring of 2008, with Steven Pitts, he co-authored “Beyond the Mountaintop: King’s Prescription for Poverty,” for the Rosenberg Foundation, to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Starting in July 2006 he served as chair of the Independent Health Care Trust for UAW Retirees of Ford Motor Company, and is on the board of the Retiree Health Administration Corporation, which administers the health care trusts for UAW retirees of Ford and General Motors. Beginning in January 2007 he was a senior fellow with the Community Service Society of New York, where he helped with Working for Change, a public policy forum held on the problems of young low-income workers and their families.
Beginning in August 2008 he became chair of the UAW Retirees of the Dana Corporation Health and Welfare Trust, which administers the health and disability trusts for UAW retirees of the Dana Corporation. He serves as vice chair of the Board of the Congressional Black Caucus Political Education and Leadership Institute. In 2008 he also served on the United Food and Commercial Workers’ Union National Commission on ICE Misconduct and Violations of 4th Amendment Rights chaired by UFCW president Joe Hansen and which included former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack.
Dr. Spriggs, a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, currently serves on the joint National Academy of Sciences and NAPA Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States: Analysis and Policy Options. As a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, he was the co-chair of the 2003 NASI conference that produced the volume, Strengthening Community: Social Insurance in a Diverse America.
Before going to Howard, Dr. Spriggs was at the Economic Policy Institute as a senior fellow, having returned there in 2004. From 1988 to 2004, he was Executive Director of the National Urban League’s Institute for Opportunity and Equality, where among other duties he was editor of the State of Black America 1999, and led research on pay equity that won the NUL the 2001 Winn Newman Award from the National Committee on Pay Equity.
He represented the NUL on various boards including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Black Leadership Forum and the National Coalition for Black Civic Participation. In 2004, with several of his Washington-based civil rights advocate colleagues; he was awarded the Congressional Black Caucus Chairman’s Award by then CBC Chair Elijah Cummings. On behalf of the NUL he gave congressional testimony on how various policies affect Black and low-income communities, and participated in the UN World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Forms of Intolerance, where he contributed language adopted in the Programme of Action relating to documenting racial disparities and incorporating closing racial disparities within efforts to achieve the Copenhagen goals for World Social Development.
Before working at the National Urban League, Dr. Spriggs held various positions in government service during the Clinton Administration: in 1993 and 1994 he led the staff of the National Commission for Employment Policy, and in 1997 and 1998 he worked at the Department of Commerce, where he worked on the federal response to the Adarand v. Pena decision, crafting the guidelines for the federal Small Disadvantage Business program that successfully addressed the Courts’ concerns in the Adarand case, and at the Small Business Administration. He served as a senior economist for the Democratic staff of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress from 1994 to 1997, where, among other things, he worked on the passage of the increase in the minimum wage and to prevent legislative efforts to roll back affirmative action in federal procurement.
Dr. Spriggs is a past-board member and President of the National Economic Association – the professional organization of Black economists, currently serves on the policy board of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, and is a Board member of the National Academy of Social Insurance. In 2006 he was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He serves on the boards of the National Employment Law Project, the National Committee for the Preservation of Social Security and Medicare, and the National Advisory Council of Corporate Voices for Working Families. He is a member of the Black Enterprise Magazine Board of Economists, and served on the 2002 Time Magazine Board of Economists.
He taught six years at Norfolk State University in Virginia, where he also headed the Honors Program for non-science students, and two years at North Carolina A & T State University (in Greensboro). He did graduate and undergraduate student internships with the United Nations Development Program in New York and the Africa Bureau of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Washington, DC.
He has presented economic papers at conferences in Brazil, Chile, Germany, Italy, South Africa, Spain and Switzerland, and has published in both academic and popular journals, as well as appearing on various television and radio news programs.
Dr. Spriggs holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BA from Williams College, graduating cum laude in 1977.
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