Black Americans whose ancestors were enslaved have been excluded from full citizenship in the United States for the last 247 years — and granting them full citizenship will cost between $13 trillion and $14 trillion, economist William “Sandy” Darity told a conference of fellow U.S. economists last week.
To see the impact of second-class citizenship on Black Americans, look no further than the racial wealth gap, Darity, a professor of public policy at Duke University, said during a panel on inequality at the American Economic Association meetings.
The “central task” of reparations policy is to raise the level of Black assets to a level sufficient to match the average net worth of white Americans, Darity said. Only this will produce the material conditions for full citizenship for Black Americans, he said.
At present, the racial wealth gap exceeds an average of $300,000 per person, Darity said. The enormous expected cost of such a program is due to the estimate that there are roughly 40 million Black Americans whose ancestors were enslaved in the U.S.
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