The Cumulative Costs of Racism and the Bill for Black Reparations

Abstract

Two major procedures for establishing the monetary value of a plan for reparations for Black American descendants of US slavery are considered in this paper: 1) Enumeration of atrocities and assignment of a dollar value to each as a prelude to adding up the total, and 2) Identification of a summary measure that captures the dollar amount of the cumulative, intergenerational effects of anti-Black atrocities. Under the first approach, the itemization strategy, we assess wage costs to the enslaved of bondage; financial gains to the perpetrators of slavery; damages to Black victims of post-Civil War white massacres and lynchings; losses from discrimination in the provision of the home buying supports from the Federal Housing Administration and the G.I. Bill; and income penalties due to racial discrimination in employment. Under the second approach, the global indicator strategy, we calculate the present value of providing 40 acres of land to freed slaves in 1865 and the current wealth gap between Black and White Americans. We conclude that the latter standard, the racial wealth gap, provides the best gauge for the size of the bill for Black reparations.