Black Californians could receive up to $1.2 million (£950,000) each in reparations to compensate for decades of racial injustice.
According to The Telegraph:
Plans approved by the Reparations Task Force, set up on the order of the governor, would provide compensation for mass incarceration, housing inequality and health care.
One estimate puts the bill for the plan at $500 billion, dwarfing California’s annual budget of $296.9 billion – at a time when the state deficit stands at $22.5 billion.
The proposal was drawn up a nine-strong panel created by California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who is tipped for a White House run, in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, a black man whose murder at the hands of a police officer in 2020 sparked nationwide protests.
The report is due to be submitted to the state’s legislature by July 1 for final approval.
California is the most advanced of several states drawing up plans to compensate black Americans for past inequalities including slavery.
Similar initiatives have been drawn up by Detroit city council and Amherst in Massachusetts.
A Pew Research poll showed that 77 per cent of black Americans and 18 per cent of whites backed reparations.
The California proposals, drawn up with the help of a team of economists, have been calculated in minute detail.
For example, compensation for “redlining” – where banks denied mortgages to people living in black areas – is estimated at having cost individuals $3,366 a year.
That could mean some black Californians receive as much as $148,099.
Compensation for over-policing and mass incarceration, as a result of the war on drugs, is estimated as being worth $2,352 a year, meaning an African-American resident in California from 1971 to 2020 stands to receive $115,260.
And based on life expectancy, the compensation for health inequalities is worth $13,619 for each year of residency.
Based on California’s life expectancy of 71 years, the total payment works out at $1.2 million.
