California Reparations Task Force Proposes $1.2 Million Payments to Black Residents.
Economists advising California's task force for reparations have estimated that it will cost $1.2 million per Black resident, paid over a lifetime. The task force is preparing to recommend that California issue "down payments" to Black residents as a way to make amends for slavery and discrimination, although the state explicitly outlawed slavery when it joined the Union in 1850. The program does not distribute reparations merely for slavery, but for other economic and cultural issues seen as the legacy of slavery itself such as "Mass incarceration and over-policing in Black communities," "discrimination in housing," and "Health harms, including unequal access to health care, greater exposure to environmental pollution and discrimination from medical workers."