California reparations proposal could mean $223K per person in payments for Black residents
Los Angeles, CaliforniaSept. 22, 2022Los Angeles long-time resident, Walter Foster, age 80, holds up a sign as the Reparations Task Force meets to hear public input on reparations at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on Sept. 22, 2022. (Ca
Gov. Gavin Newsom's Reparations Task Force received projections from a consulting panel that show California may need to pay over $200,000 per person to Black residents if the state wishes to make good on promises of reparations for past housing discrimination.
Newsom has aggressively pushed his plan to provide financial reparations to Black Californians whom he says must be financially compensated for decades of discrimination.
The California Reparations Task Force's five member economic consultant team reported that under the initiative, qualifying Black residents in the state could qualify for $223,200 per person.
Via legislation signed in 2020, Newsom created the task force, which voted in March to limit potential reparations to descendants of free or enslaved Black people in the country at the end of the 19th century rather than all Black people, as many reparations advocates have pushed for.
A report from the group — which runs 500 pages — is the first government-commissioned study on harms against the Black community since the 1968 Kerner Commission report ordered by President Lyndon Johnson, task force Chair Kamilah Moore said.
A federal slavery reparations bill, commonly referred to as H.R. 40, has languished in Congress since it was first introduced in 1989. It passed out of the House Judiciary Committee in 2021, but most believe it is unlikely to progress further.