William E. Spriggs, Economist Who Pushed for Racial Justice, Dies at 68

William E. Spriggs, who in a four-decade profession in economics sought to root out racial injustice in society and in his personal career, died on Tuesday in Reston, Va. He was 68.

The A.F.L.-C.I.O., for which Dr. Spriggs had been chief economist for greater than a decade, introduced his demise. His spouse of 38 years, Jennifer Spriggs, stated the trigger was a stroke.

One of probably the most outstanding Black economists of his technology, Dr. Spriggs served as an assistant secretary of labor within the Obama administration and held different public-sector roles earlier in his profession. But he was finest recognized for his work outdoors of presidency as an outspoken and often quoted advocate for employees, particularly Black employees.

In addition to his position on the A.F.L.-C.I.O., based mostly in Washington, he was a professor at Howard University, the place he mentored a technology of Black economists whereas pushing for change inside a area dominated by white males.

“Bill was somebody who was deeply committed to the idea that we do economics because we have a social purpose,” William A. Darity Jr., a Duke University economist and longtime buddy, stated in a cellphone interview. “That this is not a discipline that should be deployed just for playing parlor games, and that we should use the ideas that we develop from economics for the design of social policy that will make the lives of most people far better.”

Dr. Spriggs labored on assorted points, together with commerce, schooling, the minimal wage and Social Security. But the subject he got here again to most often, and spoke most passionately about, was that of racial disparities within the labor market. Black Americans, he identified again and again, constantly skilled unemployment at double the speed of white folks — a troubling indisputable fact that he argued acquired too little consideration amongst economists.

“Economists have tried to rationalize this disparity by saying it merely reflects differences in skill levels,” Dr. Spriggs wrote in an opinion article in The New York Times in 2021, earlier than occurring to dismiss that declare with a hanging statistic: The unemployment fee for white highschool dropouts is nearly at all times beneath that of total Black unemployment.

During the nationwide racial reckoning after the demise of George Floyd in 2020, Dr. Spriggs wrote an open letter to his fellow economists that was sharply crucial of the sphere’s method to race — not simply in its failure to recruit and retain Black economists, which had been extensively documented, but additionally in financial analysis.

“Modern economics has a deep and painful set of roots that too few economists acknowledge,” Dr. Spriggs wrote. “In the hands of far too many economists, it remains with the assumption that African Americans are inferior until proven otherwise.”

Biden administration officers stated that they had mentioned appointing Dr. Spriggs to senior financial coverage roles as just lately as this 12 months. In the top, he remained on the skin, nudging the administration in private and non-private to not again off its dedication to making sure a powerful financial restoration. In latest months he was a vocal critic of the Federal Reserve’s aggressive efforts to tame inflation, which Dr. Spriggs warned would disproportionately damage Black employees.

“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,” President Biden stated in an announcement on Wednesday.

William Edward Spriggs was born on April 8, 1955, in Washington to Thurman and Julienne (Henderson) Spriggs. He was reared there and in Virginia. His father had served throughout World War II as a fighter pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen and went on to grow to be a physics professor at Norfolk State University in Virginia and at Howard, in Washington, each traditionally Black establishments.

His mom was additionally a veteran and have become a public-school instructor in Norfolk after incomes her school diploma whereas her son was in elementary college.

“I remember studying history together,” Dr. Spriggs later recalled of his mom in a White House weblog submit written whereas he was on the Labor Department. “She would check out children’s books covering the topics she was learning about.”

Dr. Spriggs earned a bachelor’s diploma in economics and political science from Williams College in Massachusetts and attended graduate college on the University of Wisconsin, the place he earned a grasp’s diploma in 1979 and a doctorate in 1984, each in economics. While in graduate college, he served as co-president of the graduate scholar academics union, serving to to rebuild it after a largely unsuccessful strike the 12 months earlier than.

Dr. Spriggs stood out at Wisconsin, and never solely as a result of he was the one Black graduate scholar within the economics division, recalled Lawrence Mishel, a classmate who was later president of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, the place Dr. Spriggs additionally labored for a number of years.

Even as a graduate scholar, Dr. Mishel stated, Mr. Spriggs was skeptical of the orthodox theories that his professors had been educating about how firms set employees’ wages — theories that left no room for discrimination or different forces past provide and demand. And not like most college students, Mr. Spriggs wasn’t keen on working for the top-ranked college the place he might discover a job; he wished to work for a traditionally Black establishment, as his father had.

He acquired his want, educating first at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro after which at Norfolk State University — the place his father additionally labored — earlier than taking a sequence of jobs in authorities and left-leaning suppose tanks. He returned to academia in 2005, when he joined Howard. He was chairman of its economics division from 2005 to 2009.

In addition to his spouse, whom he met in graduate college, his survivors embody their son, William; and two sisters, Patricia Spriggs and Karen Baldwin.

Dr. Spriggs had a shaping hand within the careers of dozens of youthful economists.

“I would not be an economist today without Bill Spriggs,” stated Valerie Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy on the Economic Policy Institute.

Dr. Wilson was taking a break from graduate college and contemplating leaving the sphere altogether when certainly one of her professors really useful her for a job working for Dr. Spriggs on the National Urban League. He helped restore her ardour for economics by displaying her an method to the work that was much less theoretical and extra targeted on the true world, she stated. After two years on the Urban League, she advised Dr. Spriggs that she was going again to graduate college.

His response: “We need you in the profession.”

Jim Tankersley contributed reporting.