Reparations might cost California more than its budget: Report
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California will have to go above and beyond, more than double its state budget, to compensate Black citizens for slavery, racism, and discriminatory practices.
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Demonstrators march through the streets of Hollywood, California, on June 2, 2020 (AFP)
The state of California's plan to compensate Black residents for the centuries during which they suffered from slavery, racism, and discriminatory practices could cost the state over $815 billion, an amount that could increase the state's budget by more than two-fold, economists tod a state panel in a Wednesday draft report.
"To estimate the state’s maximum liability from [housing] redlining reparations, the average per capita housing wealth gap in 2021 dollars is multiplied with the number of Black California residents in 1980, yielding $569,362,181,760," the draft report, submitted to the state's Reparations Task Force, read.
The economists also said it would cost more than $246.5 billion for reparations related to disproportionate Black non-felony drug arrests.
The estimate is 2.5 times more than California's current total yearly budget of around $300 billion and excludes property that the repatriations task group claims were illegally seized, as well as the devaluation of Black-owned businesses.
California Assembly Member Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who sits on the repatriations committee, told the Associated Press before a task force session on Wednesday that they need to "have an open mind and come up with some innovative methods to deal with this."
Another reparations panel in San Francisco called earlier for providing $5 million to each of the city's Black residents.
The task force has until July 1 to agree on a cash amount to recommend to lawmakers on how much California should give to its Black residents.
Additionally, the task force is set to discuss and possibly vote to adopt the suggestions or come up with alternatives on Wednesday and Thursday.
Racial disparities are found in all walks of life in the United States, as it was reported on September 29 that Black Americans were seven times more likely than their White counterparts to be wrongfully convicted of serious offenses, and they spend more time in jail before being exonerated.
Although they make up 13.6% of the American population, Black people account for 53% of the 3,200 exonerations listed on the registry as of August 8, 2022.
Moreover, the convictions that result in the exonerations of Black defendants for murder were about 50% more likely to contain misconduct by police officers.
Additionally, a newly surfaced 2017 internal Veterans Affairs report found that Black veterans were more likely to be denied benefits for PTSD than their white counterparts.
An analysis that crunched data from the fiscal year 2011 through 2016 showed that Black veterans who are seeking disability benefits for PTSD were rejected 57% of the time, compared to 43% for white veterans.
The report came out as part of an open records lawsuit filed by an advocacy group for Black veterans.
The agency did not immediately have data on the racial breakdown of PTSD disability benefits awards, said Terrence Hayes, a spokesperson for the Department of Veterans Affairs, who continued to say that the agency "is gathering the data and will share it once fully compiled."
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The 2017 analysis is significant because it portrays that minority veterans showed higher rates (5.8%) of PTSD than nonminority veterans (5%).
The disparities were highlighted in a series of reports by NBC News Now and NBC local stations in a series called "American Vets: Benefits, Race, and Inequality."
