Bill is Chair of the Department, and a professor, of Economics at Howard University in Washington, DC. Most recently, Bill was at the Economic Policy Institute as senior fellow, having returned there in 2004. Before that, 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. As a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, Bill was the co-chair of the 2003 NASI conference that produced the volume, Strengthening Community: Social Insurance in a Diverse America.
In 2004, with several of his Washington-based civil rights advocate colleagues, Bill was awarded the Congressional Black Caucus Chairman’s Award by then CBC Chair Elijah Cummings. On behalf of the NUL, Bill gave congressional testimony on how various policies would affect the Black and low-income community, and participated in the UN World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Forms of Intolerance. Bill left EPI in 1993, when during the Clinton Administration he worked in various agencies: he led the staff of the National Commission for Employment Policy, and worked at the Department of Commerce and at the Small Business Administration.
He has served as a senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. He 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. He serves on the boards of the Congressional Black Caucus Political Education and Leadership Institute, the National Employment Law Project and the National Advisory Council of Corporate Voices for Working Families.
Bill 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), and two years at North Carolina A & T State University (in Greensboro), and has published in both academic and popular journals, and appeared on various television and radio news programs. Education: Ph.D. Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison 1984 BA, Williams College 1977.
