Recently, the issue of reparation for slavery and Jim Crow racism has received renewed interest, spurred in part by Ta Nehisi-Coates’ 2014 article, “The Case for Reparations.” Programs of repair are beginning to occur at state and local levels (e.g., Evanston, IL, and the state of California), but the major push among reparationists is for federal reparations.
And, yet, the prospect of reparation faces various challenges. Key among them is a worry about the seeming unfairness of reparation. Consider that, were federal reparation to occur, the financial cost would fall to citizens who are innocent with respect to the historic injustices being repaired—specifically, through the appropriation of taxes for reparative programs. Is this fair?
A worry of this sort is hinted at by Walter E. Williams: “If we believe in individual accountability, we should find that [making present-day citizens finance reparations] is unjust. Are the tens of millions of Europeans, Asian and Latin Americans who immigrated to the U.S. in the late 19th and 20th centuries responsible for slavery, and should they be forced to cough up reparations?” Or, as someone recently asked me, “should a baby born today pay for things that occurred long before they were born?” The criticism suggested by these statements is that reparation faces an unfairness problem. Specifically, the government acts unfairly by imposing the cost of repair onto citizens who are innocent of the wrong being repair.
Consider two strategies for responding. Sometimes it’s argued that special associations, rather than fault, make it permissible to impose compensatory burdens on those who are faultless. If I become a member of a group that has a prior debt, some of my membership fees might go toward paying off the debt. There is no unfairness here, even though I am not at fault for the debt.
On this vein, Robert Fullinwider has argued that we need to distinguish between personal liability and civic responsibility. Generally, citizens are responsible for their “share of the governments’s necessary expenditures,” not because they are at fault but because they are citizens. If reparation is justified, innocent citizens must finance it as a matter of fulfilling civic responsibility, not as a matter of personal liability for wrongdoing.
A second strategy is to point out that myriad present-day citizens benefit from historic wrongs. Benefiting from wrongdoing, the idea goes, generates prima facie responsibilities to help compensate the aggrieved. In the philosophical literature, a view like this is referred to as the “Beneficiary Pays Principle.” Barry and Goodin put it like this: “Innocent beneficiaries of wrongdoing should relinquish benefits which they wrongly received; those relinquished benefits should be used to compensate victims of the wrongdoing.”
One problem with this second approach is that it does not address the issue at the heart of the unfairness worry, which is about the legitimacy of the government’s use of taxpayer money for reparative ends. Federal reparation would require the imposition of a new financial burden on present-day citizens. How does the fact that these citizens benefit from the state’s past injustice legitimize the government’s imposition of this burden?
The following case illustrates the problem: a burglar breaks into your neighbor’s house and leaves them without food for the week. Plausibly, you have a moral responsibility to assist your neighbor in their time of need, at least until they can get back on their feet. The government intends to help your neighbor too. Nevertheless, the government cannot justify imposing the burden of compensation on you on the grounds that you have a moral responsibility to your neighbors. In general, it does not follow that the government can impose costs of repair on A, to the benefit of victims of wrongdoing, simply because A ought to assist the victims.
Hence, even if the Beneficiary Pays Principle is true, it does not resolve the unfairness objection, which has to do with the alleged unfairness of the government’s use of taxpayer money for reparation.
My own work attempts to tell a story about how benefiting from injustice is relevant to the status of federal reparations. Here’s a sketch of the project.
First, I consider the possibility that a democratic state can legitimately use taxes for national expenditures when (and because) it benefits its taxpayers in special ways. By providing an array of protections, opportunities, and services that advance the needs, rights, and flourishing of their denizens, democratic societies are thereby permitted to distribute the cost of expenditures to citizens. This view—what I call “Benefitisim”—explains the fairness of taxation by pointing to the enrichments made available to citizens as a result of state action.
But, consider that not all citizens benefit equally from the provision of state goods. In the U.S., benefits fall along racial lines. A major part of the explanation has to do with the U.S.’s history of enfranchising white Americans while disenfranchising Black Americans. At times, this involved inexcusable and racist neglect of the safety, economic opportunity, and political inclusion of Black Americans. Many other times, however, matters were worse: state and federal governments actively worked to block pathways of enrichment and inclusion for Black Americans. No comparable form of racist negligence or calculated wrongdoing has targeted white Americans—in fact, calculated state wrongs were usually done for the benefit of white Americans. Hence, the state has culpably and unequally benefited its citizens along racial lines.
What follows from this? Prima facie, reparations are required. Beyond that, it seems plausible to me that the more the state benefits and advantages one group of citizens, C1, over another, C2, the more it can legitimately expect C1 to finance a greater share of the national expenditure (all else being equal). I’ll call this “the Principle of Proportionality” (PP).
If PP is true, and the history of unequal benefiting sketched above is true, it follows that, all else being equal, the government does not necessarily act unfairly by calling upon white taxpayers to fund an unequal share of the reparative debt.
To bring it all together, the idea is that the provision of benefits to citizens makes it legitimate for the government to impose the cost of national expenditures on them (per Benefitism). The benefits are vast, including historic investments such as New Deal era programs, the subsidization of suburban neighborhoods, the provision of good mortgage loans and, more generically, institutions that secure land rights, voting rights, political representation, and so on. These are all part of the foundation on which the government can fairly expect beneficiaries to give back by way of taxes. What’s more, even if these state provisions did not materialize concrete benefits for every citizen (e.g., a house) access to these opportunity structures is itself a benefit and, on my view, legitimizes government taxation as well.
However, to varying degrees, each of these provisions has been tainted by historic racism. White citizens, in particular, had (and have) special access to numerous of these goods. Black Americans, on the other hand, have not (and do not) have the same access. Historically, they were often entirely excluded from access to these goods. The ongoing advantages created by this tainted history are immense. Even white immigrants and white newborns enjoy comparably greater access to the opportunity structures made possible by these historic investments. To be sure, there is variance among white Americans when it comes to reaping these benefits. In my research, I consider how intersectionality impacts the extent of benefits to white Americans and what that might imply about reparations. Nonetheless, the general trend is one of disparate investment into white citizens.
None of this makes white citizens personally liable for historic wrongs. Rather, my argument is that, per Benefitism and PP, this tainted history of unjust benefiting means that white citizens lack a legitimate complaint against the government when it disproportionately draws on their taxes for reparation. They benefit, after all, so they must give back. But they benefit more, so they must give back more.
In conclusion, perhaps everyone’s taxes will be used in some measure for reparation (just like everyone’s taxes are used for welfare assistance—including the taxes of the poor), but some will finance a disproportionately greater share of that national expenditure. That is not unfair, and that’s because many of us disproportionately benefit from state-sanctioned, historic injustice.
Some problems with this essay. For example, there’s no consideration of benefits already provided to African-Americans, such as civil rights laws and enforcement, affirmative action, quotas, diversity programs, disadvantaged business enterprise programs, school lunches, LIHEAP, TANF, WIC, food stamps, equal employment opportunity, HBCUs, private efforts such as Rosenburg Schools, etc. Second, how far back in time does liability extend? To 1865? The Biblical seven generations? Third, to whom would the reparations benefits flow? Only those who can prove that an ancestor lived in U.S. slavery? Fourth, will there be means testing, so that Blacks who are well educated and well off financially do not receive undue benefits? Fifth, what about other groups that were disadvantaged, such as Hispanics, Asian-Americans, people with disabilities, and LGBT people? Sixth, it is not quite true that no white Americans were ever institutionally disadvantaged. Groups include many LGBT people, many women (including today, with anti-abortion), and many people with disabilities.
Marc, these are all great questions. Thanks. Re the benefits already provided to African Americans, my own view is that these benefits were/are half-baked (like, quite seriously half-baked). Roughly, this means that, while they have some rectificatory value for the Black community (measured in terms of economic growth, increased opportunity, increased representation, etc.), they fall far short of what is actually owed. Consider that many of these efforts were gutted multiple times over, often for racist reasons. TANF, for example, experienced immense pushback and legislative rollback during the latter half of the 20th century (when it was called AFDC). It is hard to deny that racist tropes and attitudes, as well as the media’s overrepresentation of African Americans in poverty, is responsible for a lot of this reaction. Today, TANF is immensely limited, barely getting people to half the poverty line in the most generous states, and it has continued to decline as a significant form of welfare assistance since the Clinton administration gutted it in 1996 (EITC does more to reduce poverty nowadays). For excellent research on all this, I recommend Joel Handler and Yeheskel Hasenfeld’s work, Blame Welfare, Ignore Poverty and Inequality, as well as Martin Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy.
Affirmative Action experienced numerous litigation battles almost right out of the gate. 1978: “no quotas.” 2003: “no extra points.” By 1996 it was banned in 10 states. Besides, not all universities used affirmative action, even before it was ruled unconstitutional in the most recent decision.
Most importantly, neither TANF nor Affirmative Action compensate for Centuries of slavery, wealth deprivation, political exclusion, and 60+ years of Jim Crow discrimination and violence. I like to think of Affirmative Action as an “equal opportunity enhancer.” It opens and widens doors that are unfairly closed or which are unjustly narrow. But Affirmative Action does not make up for the inter-generational losses that resulted from being locked out of those doors. A similar analysis can be applied to some of the other interventions you describe (e.g., diversity programs, civil rights legislation, etc.). In general, gains in opportunity and formal equality are not necessarily appropriate for discharging compensatory obligations (in part because they do not make up for losses suffered when formal inequality, plunder, and dis-opportunity were present).
Consider, moreover, that the impact of historic racism is still felt today in measurable ways. As you probably know, the Black-white wealth gap is massive. There some’s exciting new recent research by Ellora Derenoncourt and her colleagues that is helping to fill in our understanding of this gap (see, “Wealth of Two Nations: The Racial Wealth Gap, 1860-2020”). Consider Roosevelt’s New Deal era policies. While these policies improved the wealth-building opportunities of white Americans, Black Americans were largely excluded from those gains (see Ira Katz-Nelson, When Affirmative Action Was White). Instead, according to Derenoncourt and her colleagues, Black gains in wealth occurred mostly because of the booming war industry. A significant convergence in Black-white wealth occurred during the 1960s, probably owing to the growing successes of the civil rights movement. Unfortunately, that convergence came to a halt, and the wealth gap has remained at its 1970 level for the past 50s years. Of course, de-industrialization in the 70s probably had something to do with this stagnation, but decades-long de jure residential discrimination cannot be ignored (see Rothstein, The Color of Law). According to a recent paper from the Institute of Assets and Social Policy, the # of years of homeownership accounts for over 25% of the racial wealth (Shapiro et al, “The roots of the widening racial wealth gap”). So our current wealth gap is no surprise, really, given the importance of homeownership for inter-generational wealth accumulation plus the decades-long efforts of the Federal Housing Administration to keep Black Americans out of new suburban neighborhoods (across every metropolitan city in the U.S.).
Having said that, we can go back further than the 20th century to discover why the wealth gap persists. According to Derenoncourt et al, even if everything had been equal between white and Black Americans after slavery––in other words, identical freedoms, opportunities, savings rates and capital gains across the two groups––our models suggest that white Americans would still have 3 times as much wealth as Black Americans. The authors write: “The main reason for such a large and lasting gap is the enormous difference in initial wealth between Black and white Americans on the eve of the Civil War.” All this suggests to me that the impact of slavery has not been washed out with time.
In sum, for all the benefits intended to redound positively on African Americans, these benefits were consistently met with pushback and rollback. Moreover, the effects of historic racism are still with us. Finally, as I suggest above, legislative victories that close opportunity gaps and increase formal equality shouldn’t be confused with legislative action aimed at compensating victims for loss.
Would love to hear your thoughts on all this. I hope to respond to your other claims soon. Thanks so much for engaging the article. Cheers.
Thank you for the excellent and interesting comments. I think you underestimate (or disregard) the amounts of money already being spent on compensatory or remedial aid to African-Americans. Remember that most of these programs are yearly; I have not attempted to total the year over year expenditures since 1865.
In his January 1964 State of the Union address, President Lyndon Johnson stated, “This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.” From then until 2004, the US government spent over $22 trillion on anti-poverty programs. Often disregarded is the amount that states spend on welfare. 92% of direct spending on public welfare occurred at the state level in 2020. (https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/public-welfare-expenditures) Only low-income Americans qualify for benefits, and the determination of this is called “means-testing.” Qualification for most welfare programs is at or below the Poverty Threshold. For some programs, it is at a multiple of the Threshold, such as 130%. Since as you state, African-Americans are substantially lower income than white Americans, they qualify much more for such programs. The benefits paid to the poor can include cash or in-kind benefits such as food or rent vouchers.
Including tax flows, Kirkegaard estimates that the U.S. government spends 20.8% of GDP on social services, which is just 3.2 percentage points lower than the EU average, and higher than Canada and Norway. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/09/how-the-u-s-spends-more-helping-its-citizens-than-other-rich-countries-but-gets-way-less/#)
About 50.1% of those receiving SNAP, TANF, and rental subsidies are Black. The basic TANF block grant totals $16.5 billion per year. States are also required to contribute, from their own funds, under a maintenance-of-effort (MOE) requirement. In FY 2021, combined federal TANF and state maintenance-of-effort (MOE) expenditures and transfers totaled $30.3 billion.
About half (49%) of Project-Based Section 8 (housing vouchers) residents are white, about a third (33%) are Black and 13% are Hispanic. Across all public housing, about 45% of residents are Black while another third (32%) are white and a little over 20% are Hispanic. (https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/HousingSpotlight2-2.pdf_
Public welfare state expenditures per capita average about $3500 per year.
Poverty rates in the U.S. are falling, with that for Blacks falling fastest. See https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/09/poverty-rates-for-blacks-and-hispanics-reached-historic-lows-in-2019.html. Thus, it appears that reparations are already occurring.
In fiscal year 2022, the federal government spent about $1.19 trillion on more than 80 different welfare programs. That represents almost 20% of total federal spending and a quarter of tax revenues in 2022 or $9,000 spent per American household.
SSI is a program that helps American adults cover basic expenses such as food and shelter. Unlike Social Security SSI is a need-based federal aid program, which does not require a worker to pay into it. The average monthly SSI payment stood at $617 in 2021.
In fiscal 2022, the federal government spent $119.4 billion on SNAP (food stamps). SNAP recipients represent different races and/or ethnicities. White: about 37%; African-American: 26%; Hispanic: 16%; Asian-American: 3%; and Native American: about 2%.
The proportion of Black welfare recipients is close to 21% (USCB 2018), while their presence in the US population is about 12%.
In FY 2023 total US government spending on welfare — federal, state, and local — is “guesstimated” to be $1,508 billion, including $890 billion for Medicaid, and $619 billion in other welfare. (https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_welfare_spending_40.html) Medicaid spending is about 19% on African-Americans, about 50% higher than their presence in the US population. For CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program), about 61% of enrollees in 2020 were from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds. (https://www.cms.gov/blog/cms-releases-data-briefs-provide-key-medicaid-demographic-data-first-time) Black children make up 14% of the child population but represent 20.8% of children with Medicaid. (https://ccf.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Snapshot-Medicaid-kids-race-ethnicity-v4.pdf)
Spending on the 10 largest of the 83 welfare programs (which account for the bulk of federal welfare spending) has doubled as a share of the federal budget over the last 30 years. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the amount expended on these 10 programs has increased by 378% over that time. (https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CRS%20Report%20-%20Welfare%20Spending%20The%20Largest%20Item%20In%20The%20Federal%20Budget.pdf)
Here is a sample list of manyfed eral welfare programs examined by the Congressional Research Service. Not all of these are directed to African-Americans. Much goes to other disadvantaged groups, such as Native Americans and migrant laborers.
• Family Planning
• • Consolidated Health Centers
• • Transitional Cash and Medical Services for Refugees
• • State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
• • Voluntary Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit—Low-Income Subsidy
• • Medicaid
• • Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program
• • Breast/Cervical Cancer Early Detection
• • Maternal and Child Health Block Grant
• • Indian Health Service
• • Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) (cash aid)
• • Supplemental Security Income
• • Additional Child Tax Credit
• • Earned Income Tax Credit (refundable component)
• • Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
• • School Breakfast Program (free/reduced price components)
• • National School Lunch Program (free/reduced price components)
• • Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)
• Child and Adult Care Food Program (lower income components)
• Summer Food Service Program
• Commodity Supplemental
• Food Program Nutrition Assistance for Puerto Rico
• The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP)
• Nutrition Program for the Elderly
• Indian Education
• Adult Basic Education Grants to States
• Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant
• Education for the Disadvantaged— Grants to Local Educational Agencies (Title I-A)
• Title I Migrant Education Program
• Higher Education—Institutional Aid and
Developing Institutions
• Federal Work-Study
• Federal TRIO Programs
• Federal Pell Grants
• Education for Homeless Children and Youth
• 21st Century Community Learning Centers
• Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR- UP)
• • Reading First and Early Reading First
• • Rural Education Achievement Program
• • Mathematics and Science Partnerships
• • Improving Teacher Quality State Grants
• • Academic Competitiveness and Smart Grant Program
• • Single-Family Rural Housing Loans
• • Rural Rental Assistance Program
• • Water and Waste Disposal for Rural Communities
• • Public Works and Economic Development
• • Supportive Housing for the Elderly
• • Supportive Housing for Persons with Disabilities
• • Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance
• • Community Development Block Grants
• • Homeless Assistance Grants
• • Home Investment Partnerships Program (HOME)
• • Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA)
• • Public Housing
• • Indian Housing Block Grants
• • Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers
• • Neighborhood Stabilization Program-1
• • Grants to States for Low-Income Housing in Lieu of Low-Income Housing Credit Allocations
• • Tax Credit Assistance Program
• • Indian Human Services
• • Older Americans Act Grants for Supportive Services and Senior Centers
• • Older Americans Act Family Caregiver Program
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) (social services)
• Child Support Enforcement
• Community Services Block Grant
• Child Care and Development Fund
• Head Start HHS
• Developmental Disabilities Support and Advocacy Grants
• Foster Care
• Adoption Assistance
• Social Services Block Grant
• Chafee Foster Care Independence Program
• Emergency Food and Shelter Program
• Legal Services Corporation
• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (employment and training component)
• Community Service Employment for Older Americans
• Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Adult Activities
• Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Youth Activities
• Social Services and Targeted Assistance for Refugees
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) (employment and training)
• Foster Grandparents
• Job Corps
• Weatherization Assistance Program
• Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) It is hard to find figures for LIHEAP beneficiaries by race, but my best guess is that African-Americans are over-represented compared to their presence in the general U.S. population, because eligibility is means and need tested. In 1983, Blacks represented 26.5% of the recipients.
These figures do not include charitable, foundation, religious, individual giving, or food banks. There are a very wide variety of such programs, including programs like Habitat for Humanity. In just one state, Maryland, about $577 million per year is provided to the state’s four public HBCUs, including the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, its Black land-grant institution. The federal government provides a substantial amount of money to HBCUs, including guaranteed loans of about $20 million per year. Capital financing is provided at a rate of about $48.5 million per year. (https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget23/justifications/u-hbcu.pdf) The American Rescue Plan provides $2.7 billion in funding for HBCUs through the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF). Since 2021, the federal government has spent about $5.8 billion for cumulative investment and support for HBCUs (https://www.adamsandreese.com/news-knowledge/hbcu-federal-funding-hadley-williams-maynard)
Marc, thanks for the follow-up thoughts.
Let me say a few things about the empirical data before addressing what I think are some of the controversial (but interesting!) philosophical assumptions you’re making about remedial justice.
First, I think we need to separate facts about overall levels of welfare spending from facts about the usefulness of welfare benefits to a given individual. State and federal outlays can increase without a corresponding boost in the value or usefulness of individual benefits to recipients––at least, you need to address the latter issue and not merely the former.
On this matter, all sorts of factors impede a qualified person’s receipt of welfare assistance, including knowledge-gaps, stigma about poverty (https://www.irp.wisc.edu/resource/elizabeth-linos-on-reducing-stigma-to-increase-participation-in-safety-net-programs/), federal time limits on receipt of welfare (implemented in 1996), and so on.
Continuing, there is reason to think that states often use federal welfare grant money in inefficient ways. As you know, while the federal government provides various welfare grants to states, states have immense discretion over how these grants are used. Matthew Desmond’s recent book, Poverty, By America, talks in detail about the way states often mishandle aid or direct it toward uses that do not ultimately serve those who need it most (https://www.amazon.com/Poverty-America-Random-House-Large/dp/0593678540/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1692900353&sr=8-1). In fact, the article you cite highlights this feature of contemporary welfare spending, claiming, “while state and local governments spent $2,387 per capita nationally on public welfare in 2020, per capita spending ranged from $1,093 in Connecticut to $4,119 in New York.” This allows for an important clarification. You write, “Often disregarded is the amount that states spend on welfare. 92% of direct spending on public welfare occurred at the state level in 2020.” I agree that this is an under-appreciated fact about welfare assistance. To be clear, though, the stat under consideration claims that direct spending on welfare assistance overwhelmingly comes from state and local institutions. That is not a stat about “the amount that states spend on welfare” in absolute terms nor in as a proportion of general expenditures.
Moreover, receipt of welfare does not necessarily address the problem of wealth inequality and low social mobility. As is widely known about the U.S., upward mobility is immensely challenging if you start in the bottom 20th percentile, with research showing that son’s inherit 50% of their fathers’ economic status (https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/5-myths-about-poverty/2021/03/25/bf75d5f4-8cfe-11eb-a6bd-0eb91c03305a_story.html). Regarding wealth inequality, as I mentioned in my earlier response, we are still living with the impact of historic racism when it comes to inter-generational wealth (do you dispute that?). How does welfare assistance (which has left this wealth-gap untouched since the 70s) count as reparation? And how does welfare assistance address the problems historic injustice created for social mobility? All this to say, merely citing growth in welfare programs does not show that welfare has been used in a manner that alleviates the enduring impact of historic racism.
For these reasons, I think there’s good reason to be wary about the argument that big numbers in government welfare spending imply that this welfare money is being put to good use (sometimes it is; sometimes it’s not). The issue is more nuanced than that.
Finally, some of the stats you cite conceal the underlying causes for the increases in federal assistance programs, but these causes matter for assessing your argument. Consider that some of the increase in welfare spending in the 21st century has been a direct response to crises in the economy. For example, federal discretionary grants (grants for transportation, education, housing, and community development) increased dramatically in response to the 2008 financial crisis but fell to historic lows leading up to 2018 (https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/federal-aid-to-state-and-local-governments). The source you cite which describes the $1.03 trillion spent on welfare programs is from 2011––when we were trying to address the impact of the financial crisis. Moreover, that same source includes the earned income tax credit in its calculation of the $1.03 trillion. I thought that was peculiar. The EITC is the single most important form of poverty alleviation in the U.S. (other than old-age pensions and medicare, which ameliorate poverty among the elderly) and it is the furthest thing from a welfare “handout.” As you probably know, EITC benefits come with a work requirement, and the benefits increase the more you work (up to a limit). No handout here. It is the return of hard earned money, and recipients have to work more and more (often in low-paying jobs) to get a better return (some of the best ethnographic research on the EITC comes from Sara Halpern-Meekin and her colleagues: https://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-Like-Poor-Post-Welfare/dp/0520275357/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1HZKWS2PW0PJU&keywords=it%27s+not+like+I%27m+poor&qid=1692905980&sprefix=it%27s+not+like+i%27m+poor%2Caps%2C161&sr=8-1). Continuing, a similar spike in federal assistance can be seen in response to the covid pandemic. Finally, there is a mountain of evidence about the impact of de-industrialization and the polarization of the labor market on job displacement and social mobility, all of which impacts federal welfare spending (https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-polarization-of-job-opportunities-in-the-u-s-labor-market-implications-for-employment-and-earnings/).
All this to say: it’s hard to see how welfare outlays could count as “reparation” when they are intended to ameliorate the impact of economic recessions, job displacement, de-industrialization, job polarization, and a pandemic. How does government assistance in response to those factors compensate for historic injustice?
This leads to what I think is the more interesting and contentious part of your argument. You seem to assume that federal and state welfare assistance can discharge (partially or otherwise) the remedial responsibilities of the state with respect to its historic transgressions. Prima facie, welfare assistance seems inadequate, in-principle and empirically, for achieving this. For one, even if welfare disproportionately helps the aggrieved, it doesn’t follow that it is doing enough to compensate for the impact of historic injustice. Given the limited nature of welfare post-1996, as well as the considerations raised above, it is implausible that welfare is succeeding in this respect. Second, even if welfare disproportionately benefits the aggrieved, it benefits larger shares of white Americans than Black Americans. For example, the largest share of SNAP and medicaid users are white (https://academic.oup.com/book/39419/chapter/339133284). It seems odd to me that federal programs directly benefiting a larger share of non-aggrieved people could count as reparation to the aggrieved. This should seem especially contentious if one thinks that reparation requires ameliorating the inequalities and gaps caused by historic injustice.
Third, imagine A exploits group B for decades, leading to inter-generational wealth loss, wage loss, innumerable indignities, and so on. If A repents and stops her exploitation, allowing members of B to apply for welfare benefits through A’s universal welfare organization, does the conferral of these benefits to group B discharge (partially or otherwise) A’s remedial responsibility? That’s implausible. Suppose A gives disproportionately more benefits to members of group B than members of other recipient groups. Still, it is implausible that this discharges her remedial responsibilities. Or consider an alternative ending: by availing themselves of the welfare benefits of A’s welfare organization, members of B are able to make upward mobility and achieve a decent standard of living. It is hard to see how that counts as reparation either. More plausibly, A owes direct compensation and apology. Precisely, cases like these suggest that reparation requires (i) targeted interventions on behalf of the aggrieved, (ii) acknowledgement that these targeted interventions are being given because of wrongdoing, and (iii) compensation that directly ameliorates the losses and injuries associated with the injustice (rather than policies that ameliorate these losses and injuries through a winding chain of investments that requires hard work and sacrifice on the part of the aggrieved––e.g., B taking meager welfare payments or EITC credits and investing them over many decades in order to regain what was lost through A’s exploitation).
Ok enough for now. Thanks again for your thoughts. I look forward to hearing back from you.
Thanks, Joel, there are a few problems with your discussion.
First, you argue that welfare programs are not effective. But nothing in this world is 100% effective. Politics is the art of the possible. Many of the recommendations for reparations involve direct payments to aggrieved people. But how will they spend that money? I did not raise the issue because it is a fraught one, and might be considered paternalistic to those receiving the money. But since you raise the effectiveness issue on the welfare side, I can now raise it on the reparations payment side. Some people have alleged that even when reparations payments are made, the money will soon disappear. Controls could be placed on receipt, such as requiring that it be spent on housing or education or safe investments. But this would be strongly resisted by African-American advocacy groups, who will maintain that the wrong assumption is that Black recipients will not spend or save or invest the money well. You say, “there’s good reason to be wary about the argument that big numbers in government welfare spending imply that this welfare money is being put to good use.” You should have similar doubts about reparations payments. If you don’t, please state why.
Second, I used the approach of giving examples of how money has been spent in the interest of African-Americans because of the reparations demand for money. If some money has already been spent for ameliorative or corrective purposes, logically that should be deducted from any future reparations payouts.
Third, the fact that some welfare benefits are received by whites and other non-Blacks does not detract from the statistics I provided that a disproportionate amount and percent go to Blacks. If all the money went to Blacks, that would be a violation of the equal protection provisions of the Constitution.
Fourth, this is true: “upward mobility is immensely challenging.” And the payments I noted in some cases were designed to address this, such as the educational expenditures.
Fifth, you ask, “How does welfare assistance (which has left this wealth-gap untouched since the 70s) count as reparation?” I hope you’re not playing language games (speaking of philosophy, see various philosophers like Wittgenstein on such games). You can call the money reparations or not, but it is money (and in kind services, like housing (public and Section 8) going from the general coffers to African-Americans. It is indeed intended to “address the problems historic injustice created for social mobility” and discrimination. You also ask, “it’s hard to see how welfare outlays could count as “reparation” when they are intended to ameliorate the impact of economic recessions, job displacement, de-industrialization, job polarization, and a pandemic. How does government assistance in response to those factors compensate for historic injustice?” See above; most of these initiatives are expressly intended to compensate for historic injustice. I hope you’re going to make me quote from various Presidential and Congressional speeches and pronouncements when each program was developed and legislative. See for example LBJ’s speeches about the Great Society and the War on Poverty.
Sixth, you say, “some of the increase in welfare spending in the 21st century has been a direct response to crises in the economy.” But you want reparations paid due to a crisis in American history, society, and economy dating from 1619 to 1865, namely Black slavery. You also confuse the issue by raising Covid. And yet there have been repeated crises like this in American history. In this one, for one of the first times, the issue of BIPOC access to vaccines and treatment was heavily discussed and acted upon by CDC, NIH, American Public Health Association, medical schools, and others. I did not previously mention these reparative initiatives, like the Office of Minority Health, but do now. Thanks for the opportunity!
Seventh, you are only partially right here: “The EITC is the single most important form of poverty alleviation in the U.S. (other than old-age pensions and medicare, which ameliorate poverty among the elderly) and it is the furthest thing from a welfare “handout.”” It is a handout to the extent that it is unearned. It is means testing, not earned. No one has to justify a request for receipt of EITC other than having income qualification and applying for it on their tax returns. Interestingly, it is an underutilized system, and could indeed be a useful part of reparations.
Eighth, you unusefully confuse low income and African-American status, as if that’s a problem. As noted above, it’s perfectly okay for qualified non-Blacks to receive social welfare benefits. In fact that aspect helps make the program pass Constitutional muster. Some advocates of race-based affirmative action don’t like using socioeconomic status as a criteria for affirmative action, even though about 80% of the benefit to Blacks would be the same, without the same Constitutional challenges, especially as stated in the recent Supreme Court decision.
Ninth, re this, “You seem to assume that federal and state welfare assistance can discharge (partially or otherwise) the remedial responsibilities of the state with respect to its historic transgressions.” That is partly right, except that I’m not assuming, I’m inferring and deducting from evidence and experience. Re the latter, I worked in the social justice field for over 50 years, continue to keep my hand in (see my various books, articles, and presentations) and know first hand about the issues, where programs came from, and what their intent was and is.
Tenth, you state, “even if welfare disproportionately helps the aggrieved, it doesn’t follow that it is doing enough to compensate for the impact of historic injustice.” I could be snarky and say that nothing is ever enough. But the reality is that no program is perfect. In fact, it’s rare for a program to put itself out of existence because of overwhelming success. A good example is the achievement gap between white and Black K-12 students. Many things have been tried, such as desegregation, busing, magnet schools, school lunches, getting lead out of the environment, federal government education nondiscrimination law enforcement, charter schools, remedial education, Head Start, etc. None have been successful except Head Start. From a strategic planning perspective, that should provide an example to do more of, as opposed to most proposals for reparations, which are “throwing money at the problem.”
Eleventh, you state, “It seems odd to me that federal programs directly benefiting a larger share of non-aggrieved people could count as reparation to the aggrieved.” That’s because your premise is wrong. As noted above and previously, Blacks receive a statistically disproportionate amount of many of these benefits. It’s okay for some non-Blacks to benefit, since that A) helps address a social need, B) helps provide political support for the program, and C) helps support a Constitutional argument that the program is legal.
Twelth, you are correct here: “cases like these suggest that reparation requires (i) targeted interventions on behalf of the aggrieved.” I suggested that approach previously.
Thirteenth, this gets to program design and implementation, which are indeed critical issues for success: “compensation that directly ameliorates the losses and injuries associated with the injustice (rather than policies that ameliorate these losses and injuries through a winding chain of investments that requires hard work and sacrifice on the part of the aggrieved.” As aspect of this approach is the concept of “matching grants” in which an organizational recipient of federal grant aid has to provide a certain percent of the funding itself. This helps to show good faith and contribution. You are edging over into my bailiwick, public policy creating, implementation, and evaluation, and I welcome your contribution and continuing interest. (See especially Tom Sanchez’ and my book, Planning as if People Matter: Governing for Social Equity.)
woops. I didn’t include my most recent response in the same thread. hope you see it, Marc. Best.
Marc, thanks again for the thoughtful replies.
You write: “First, you argue that welfare programs are not effective. But nothing in this world is 100% effective. Politics is the art of the possible.”
Fair point, though I didn’t intend to convey that welfare programs are not effective at all. Nor did I intend to convey that the lack of effectiveness has to do with recipient’s use of welfare resources. Rather, I was trying to put pressure on what I perceived to be a key move in your argument––namely, the move from facts about welfare’s growth to a conclusion about welfare’s effectiveness in addressing the enduring impact of historic injustice. In general, it seems to me that facts about federal welfare spending are not necessarily a good indication of whether states are using that money effectively. Most relevantly, though, such facts are not necessarily a good indication of whether states are effectively using that money to achieve the demands of reparative justice. The details of those welfare transfers and welfare programs, not their size, matters (though, as I argue above and here, I doubt that welfare can satisfy the demands of reparation).
You suggest that I should have “similar doubts about reparations payments.” If what you mean is that I should doubt that facts about the amount of federal spending on reparation are themselves good indicators of the effectiveness of federal reparation programs, I agree. No qualms there. Fortunately, reparationists are (and have been) exploring proposals for effective reparation (https://www.amazon.com/Here-Equality-Second-Reparations-Twenty-First-dp-1469671204/dp/1469671204/ref=dp_ob_image_bk). I look forward to seeing how this work evolves.
I suspect our central disagreement is over the satisfaction conditions for reparation. You write: “If some money has already been spent for ameliorative or corrective purposes, logically that should be deducted from any future reparations payouts.” It’s a really interesting claim, but I doubt it. Consider: the state sanctions the exploitation of my labor, leading me to experience various economic losses and setbacks. Suppose it could compensate me by paying me $100,000. Imagine, however, that a recession occurs and I (along with many others) need temporary assistance. Suppose the state gives me $1,000 in assistance as part of its efforts to allay the impact of the recession. Can it now discharge its remedial obligations to me (as part of remediating its exploitation) by paying me $99,000? That seems highly implausible.
Perhaps more clear are cases like this: the state unjustly confiscates my house and property, totaling $500,000 in losses. If I go on to receive benefits from medicaid and EITC, can the state deduct those benefits from its compensatory debt? Definitely not.
Plausibly, welfare assistance satisfies a separate duty of the state to the beneficiary. It is separate in this sense (at least): had the state not wrongfully injured me, it still would have owed me welfare assistance. It’s sounds odd that the state could satisfy some of its compensatory obligations by providing benefits that would have been owed regardless. I’ll have to think more about the matter, but I want to resist the implication that compensatory obligations can be satisfied by just any transfer of money from the transgressor to the claimant. This is pretty obviously false, especially when we step away from reparative cases. If I lend you $100, you cannot discharge your pay-back responsibility to me by, say, buying me a birthday gift valued at $100, nor by paying me $100 for work I did on your house (where I agreed to work for $100), and so on.
To be sure, we need more work discussing the satisfaction conditions for reparation. There is exciting room for research here.
As a side note, I’m not totally sure what you mean here: “Eighth, you unusefully confuse low income and African-American status, as if that’s a problem. As noted above, it’s perfectly okay for qualified non-Blacks to receive social welfare benefits. In fact that aspect helps make the program pass Constitutional muster.” I agree that welfare benefits should be universal. I have strong reservations about whether universal programs are able, in-principle, to satisfy the demands of reparative justice for state-sanctioned historic injustices as egregious and long-standing as those committed against Black Americans.
Thanks again.
Hi Joel, first, nobody but us seems to be interested enough in this topic to comment. So if you want to take it off-line and communicate directly with me, that’s fine. Second, I have the book you cited, and it’s excellent. Unfortunately, nobody I can find but me is noting that benefits already received and being received should be deducted from any reparations. Third, re this, “I want to resist the implication that compensatory obligations can be satisfied by just any transfer of money from the transgressor to the claimant,” I did say “any transfer of money” satisfies anything. I said that a transfer of money, goods, or in-kind assistance designed to ameliorate wrongs and/or increase social justice and equality should be deducted from reparations. Fourth, I know that philosophers like thought experiments, but legal thought is reluctant to engage in hypotheticals. Too often, some of the premises need to be exhaustively denied. Fifth, I will need to hear more about what you mean by “satisfaction conditions.” I think you mean something specific and technical rather than a common language definition. But to pursue common language for a moment and not a private language, it’s an interesting question of what would satisfy African-Americans, and make them withdraw all past, present, and future claims of discrimination. That would be a condition I would set for receipt of reparation funds, especially the larger sums being bandied about, like the $5 million per Black in California’s Reparations Task Force recommendations. Is the goal to make everyone equal? If so, money, stuff, and benefits would have to be taken away from the rich and given to the poor. It seems like an impossible goal to make everything level. The Communists in the Soviet Union nominally tried to do this, and failed mightily. Just as the reparations debate take reality into consideration, so too should past attempts be taken into consideration. There is no perfect or ideal world. We are not Platonists or philosopher-kings. One could impose a randomness criterion for every decision that incurred a benefit. Are you willing to let luck, randomness, and entropy determine individual futures?
I’m a retired professional planner, grateful for the ethics training I underwent to earn my AICP and continuing my education into justice and race through orgs like Coming To The Table and others and reading widely. Today our local group discussed the legacy of urban renewal through the example of Asheville’s great reparations work (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-mix/id1529667681?i=1000639790019). And I came to APA, to this site, wondering what the profession was doing with regard to repair, as we have been footsoldiers in defining “blight” and in so much else that has perpetrated and supported inequity. Glad to find this article (to the well considered discussion of it above, why are we forgetting that the oppressed paid taxes to pay for public benefits that could never benefit them, such as whites-only suburban development, infrastructure, redevelopment? How do we add that to our mathematics?) but wondering about the personal and professional responsibility for repair. The path to federal reparations seems likely to lead through broad-based personal and institutional reckoning of why it is so needed.
Re this, “the oppressed paid taxes to pay for public benefits that could never benefit them.” if by “the oppressed” you mean low income people, they pay very little in taxes and receive many public benefits. The lowest income people pay no income taxes at all. They do pay regressive sales taxes.