THIS ISSUE BRIEF is part of a series examining a variety of controversial local and national issues, focusing on specific policy proposals that are under active consideration. The premise of these essays, as outlined here and here, is that many important public policy issues are more complicated than the most fervent adherents to either side usually acknowledge, a dynamic that often hinders our ability to engage in thoughtful debate. (Earlier essays in the series have addressed proposals for free community college, free MBTA service, the state’s right-to-shelter law, allowing municipalities to enact rent control, whether the state should legalize supervised injection sites, and whether to give school librarians more control over book selection while limiting the say of school committees and parents.) 

For each proposal in the series, I provide some basic background, with a high-level framing of the disagreement and the polarized “bumper sticker” arguments on both sides. I then present what I believe to be the most reasonable evidence-based cases, pro and con. Each issue brief concludes with reflections on possible avenues for finding common ground or higher ground and some basic data points, with links to useful resources, to help facilitate a rational and civil dialogue, ideally leading to agreement or at least understanding, if not in the halls of power, then maybe just around the dinner table. 

The Proposal:

Appoint a commission to make recommendations for how the Commonwealth should provide reparations to descendants of enslaved people.

Background:

Ever since the end of the Civil War there have been debates over whether and how to provide former slaves and their descendants with some kind of recognition and compensation for the grievous harm of slavery, starting with General William Tecumseh Sherman’s short-lived order to allocate a strip of land along the coastlines of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida to freed slaves and to give each formerly enslaved family 40 acres and a mule. 

Federal legislation to establish a national reparations commission was first introduced in 1989 and has been reintroduced repeatedly ever since. More recently, interest in reparations has grown at the local level, with several states and numerous cities, Boston among them, establishing commissions to make policy recommendations, including monetary compensation for their roles in the slave trade and subsequent acts of racial discrimination.  In 2019, Evanston, Illinois, enacted a first-in-the-nation reparations ordinance, enabling Black residents to receive a $25,000 payment from the city if they experienced housing discrimination before 1969, at which time the city banned the practice.

State Sen. Liz Miranda and state Rep. Brandy Fluker Oakley have introduced legislation to establish a reparations commission for Massachusetts to consider not only the long-term harm and financial impact of slavery and segregation, but also other more recent injustices, such as “redlining, educational funding discrepancies and predatory financial practices.”

Sticking Points and Bumper Stickers:

Advocates on both sides of this issue are not really focused on the idea of a commission itself, but rather the intended outcome: compensation for Black people to redress the cumulative economic and social impact of slavery, segregation, discrimination, and racism over the course of American history.

Racial Reckoning, Now!:  Activists in favor of reparations argue that past and present attempts at creating a truly equal society have failed in the face of deeply ingrained and ongoing structural, systemic racism. Rather than wait for the world to change, it’s time for America and Massachusetts, which have benefited greatly from the exploitation of Black people, to repay a debt that is long past due.

Dignity, Not Dependency!: Advocates opposed to reparations argue that the underlying cause of persistent Black poverty is not historic or current racism, but rather the breakdown of the Black family, the weakening of community and religious institutions, over-reliance on government-funded social programs, and the scourge of drugs and crime. Paying reparations will only reinforce the paternalistic perception that Black people are not capable of lifting themselves up.

Evidence-Based Case in Favor:

Notwithstanding the end of slavery almost 160 years ago and the end of legal segregation 60 years ago, the social and economic disparities between Black and White citizens in the Commonwealth and across the United States remain unacceptably large. And even though federal and state anti-poverty programs since the late-1960s have disproportionately benefited Black Americans, their net impact on reducing these disparities has been marginal at best. Indeed, more recently Black-White gaps have sometimes grown larger with regard to economic indicators such as wealth and income, as have social indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality, and single-parent families.

Although there are areas of meaningful improvement with potential for even greater progress, such as educational attainment and business formation, the rate of nominal change is far too slow to fully close the gaps between Blacks and Whites for many decades, if ever.

For example, a recent Brookings Institution study on Black business formation reports that “if Black business ownership continues to grow at [the current] rate…it will take 256 years to reach parity” with White rates of business ownership. In 2010, the percentage of White people with bachelor’s degrees between the ages of 25 to 29 was 17 percentage points higher than that of Black people. By 2022, while the share of young Black people with bachelor’s degrees had grown by almost two-thirds, the gap remained the same.

There’s little debate that the 345 years of slavery and Jim Crow in the South exacted a terrible price on the capacity of Black Americans to become self-sufficient, let alone economically competitive with White Americans. But other racist federal and state policies in both the North and South have done significant lasting damage, too. Notably, government funding for higher education and housing, which formed the basis for much of America’s robust post-war economic growth and family wealth accumulation, explicitly excluded most Black people from participating. Not to mention discriminatory private practices, such as redlining, that were allowed to go on for years after legalized discrimination was supposedly outlawed.

Median Black household wealth in the United States was estimated to be just over $27,000 in 2021, compared to about $250,000 in White households. The picture locally is even more stark. In Boston, the Federal Reserve Bank estimates median Black household wealth to be effectively zero.

In other words, the strategies and policies that have been pursued over the past 50 to 60 years to generate economic and social equality for Black Americans are clearly inadequate to overcome the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and decades of both de jure and de facto discrimination.

Aggregating the national Black-White wealth differential of $223,000 per household translates into a national gap of about $3.5 trillion. Massachusetts’s proportionate share of that amount, based on its Black population, would be about $43.8 billion. 

Of course, this calculation ignores the many other direct and indirect human costs resulting from centuries of racial oppression, which might be treated as pain and suffering in the context of a lawsuit. In court, compensation for these additional damages can often double or triple a jury award or settlement, based on malfeasance far less odious than what has been inflicted on Blacks in America.

There are many other ways to calculate this societal liability and numerous ways it could or should be addressed. There are also complex questions about who should receive payments or services, over what period of time, and how they should be paid for.

Rightly conceived, a commission on reparations should not only assess and quantify the financial and social challenges that need to be overcome, but also identify some viable policy options for accelerating progress and closing gaps, specifically for US-born Black Americans whose families who have directly or indirectly suffered the effects of slavery and pervasive racial discrimination in the United States. And even though Massachusetts was the first state to ban slavery and was the center of the abolitionist movement, the Commonwealth profited greatly from the slave trade and has had a long history of both de jure and de facto racial discrimination, producing some of the largest Black-White wealth and income gaps in the country.

There are no easy answers, but it is unquestionably an issue in need of fresh thinking at both national and state levels. The alternative is to give in to complacency about the seeming futility of ever achieving a truly fair and equal society. In other words, the ultimate purpose of reparations is not just how to pay compensation for past harm, but how to help ensure a better future.

Evidence-Based Case Opposed:

The case for reparations to compensate Black residents of Massachusetts for the persistent social and economic effects of historical and systemic racism is understandable but ultimately a distraction from more productive and pragmatic efforts to address yawning racial disparities throughout the US and here in the Commonwealth.

In 2020, the California legislature authorized the appointment of a commission to make recommendations regarding reparations for Black Californians who are descendants of slaves. The language in the reparations bill pending before the Massachusetts Senate tracks closely to that of California’s law. 

The California commission report took into account lost income and wealth caused directly by slavery and overtly discriminatory laws and policies of the past, as well as more recent government actions that have yielded a disproportionately negative impact on Black communities, concluding that the financial harm that the state of California “caused or could have prevented” amounts to approximately $1.2 million for each eligible Black Californian. The commission’s final report also included over 100 policy recommendations.

Since the California commission issued its report, public opinion in the state has trended sharply against reparations, with broad-based majorities in opposition, including among Latinos, independent voters, and voters across every age group. Only about three-quarters of Black Californians support reparations, with some more conservative or heterodox Black opinion leaders questioning its efficacy and the political wisdom of alienating non-Black low-income and working-class erstwhile allies.

Given the poll numbers and the exorbitant price tag, there is little likelihood that even California’s heavily Democratic legislature will appropriate significant funds for reparations any time soon. Continuing to press the recommendations risks even more backlash.

If you apply the California economic estimates to the Massachusetts Black population born in the United States (close to 400,000 people), the total reparations bill would be about $475 billion – more than eight times larger than the state’s annual budget.

Even if significant reparations were warranted, this is clearly a national, not a state issue, given the potential scale of liability and the fraught history of race relations throughout the United States, as well as the implications for potential future claims by other aggrieved minorities, such as Native peoples. But while the US Constitution allows compensation for individuals who have suffered harm at the hands of the government, it bars payments or benefits to entire classes of people based primarily on race or ancestry, a principle that was recently affirmed by the US Supreme Court in its decision regarding college admissions policies.

Setting aside the legal issues, the dollars at stake are potentially so large that serious proposals for reparations will inevitably defer or derail consideration of other ways to create a more equal Commonwealth, as policymakers and advocates wrestle with highly technical and politically charged issues about who is eligible to receive compensation, how much they should get, and who should pay. And if a reparations bill were to pass, it would likely lead to offsetting cuts in social programs that are beneficial, if not essential, to many Black families and communities.

Inequality in America along racial and ethnic lines is surely an intractable and complex problem. Forming a commission as a precursor to implementing reparations is held out as the solution to racial division and inequality, but it is likely to generate more heat than light, potentially deepening the divide and weakening more practical efforts to redress past and present wrongs.

Potential for Common Ground or Higher Ground:

While there have been numerous attempts to develop a comprehensive policy agenda to address racial discrimination and reduce Black poverty, dating back at least to the Great Society, it’s hard to deny that even though those efforts have produced significant progress, the overall results fall far short of where we need to be as a country and a Commonwealth. Although there may be openness among a broad cross-section of the public to stepping back and revisiting the issue of racial inequality, there appears to be little appetite for reparations, per se, which can be seen as a vehicle for relitigating the past or branding America as a fundamentally racist society that remains caught in the grip of White supremacy.

Whether through an independent commission or legislative task force, there may be value in focusing more narrowly on the issue of wealth inequality, especially with regard to reducing gaps in home ownership and business formation in predominantly Black communities. Equally important could be a deeper focus on education and workforce development, especially related to college and career pathways in high-demand, high-growth sectors where Black workers and professionals are under-represented or under-paid. Additional consideration might be given to authorizing certain targeted civil procedures and remedies for individuals and their families who have suffered significant direct injury, due to past government-sponsored or condoned acts of racism.

Jim Peyser served most recently as Massachusetts secretary of education under Gov. Charlie Baker.

Data:

Black-White Gaps and Trends (US)

  • Infant Mortality (2021):  10.55 per 1,000 vs. 4.36 per 1,000 (2.4 times higher, gap is 2.5 percent bigger since 2000)
  • Single-Parent Households (2021):  64 percent vs. 24 percent (2.7 times higher, gap is 7.7 percent bigger since 2000)
  • 4th Grade Reading, Below Basic on NAEP (2019): 52 percent vs. 23 percent (2.3 times higher, gap is 4.1 percent smaller since 2000)
  • 8th Grade Math, Below Basic on NAEP (2019): 53 percent vs. 20 percent (2.7 times higher, gap is 8.0 percent smaller since 2000)
  • 6-Year College Graduation from 4-year degree programs (2022):  68 percent vs. 46 percent (1.5 times higher, gap is 11.4 percent smaller since 2002)
  • Median Household Income (2022): $52,860 vs. $81,060 (35 percent lower, gap is 0.9 percentage points bigger since 2000)
  • Poverty Rate (2022): 17.1 percent vs. 8.6 percent (2 times higher, gap is 32 percent smaller since 2000)
  • Household Wealth (2021): $27,000 vs. $250,000 (90 percent lower, gap is 5 percentage points bigger since 2001)
  • Home Ownership (2023): 46 percent vs. 74 percent (37 percent lower, gap is 2.6 percentage points bigger than 2000)
  • Rates of Incarceration (2021): 901 per 100,000 vs. 181 per 100,000 (5 times higher, gap is 32 percent smaller since 2001)

Sources and Resources:

U.S. Census Bureau, Black (or African American) Data:  https://www.census.gov/about/partners/cic/resources/data-links/african-american.html

Federal Reserve System, Changes in Racial Inequality in the Survey of Consumer Finances:  https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/greater-wealth-greater-uncertainty-changes-in-racial-inequality-in-the-survey-of-consumer-finances-accessible-20231018.htm#fig1

Centers for Disease Control, Health of Black or African American non-Hispanic Population:  https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/black-health.htm

Pew Research Center, Facts About the U.S. Black Population:  https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/