The premise of the reparations movement is that, had African Americans come to the US by voluntary immigration, as US whites had, and not subsequently been victims of racial discrimination, redlining, etc., they would be in a much better economic position. Hence, per the argument, they are owed money to make up the difference. For the sake of argument, let's accept this for the moment, and assume that some appropriate, one-time payment could be made that would render the supposed debt paid in full.
This raises the question: how much would such a payment amount to? There may be any number of ways to calculate this number, but the following is my own, based on common sense and cursory research.
First, some basic numbers to put things in perspective.
"In 2016, white families had a median net worth of $171,000, compared with $17,600 for blacks and $20,700 for Hispanics."
"3.25 people in the average Hispanic household
2.90 people in the average Asian household
2.51 people in the average Black household
2.37 people in the average non-Hispanic White household"
now some basic math
median white wealth: 171,000/2.37=72,151
median black wealth: 17,600/2.37=7,426
72,151-7,426=64,725
Thus, functionally, the MAX. reparations bill would be $64,725 per African American. But how much would this cost nonblacks?
some figures:
US total population: 327,200,000
US black population: 37,144,530
US nonblack population: 290,055,470
final math:
(37,144,530 x 64,725)/290,055,470 = 8,288
Would you be willing to pay $8,288 to never hear about racism again?
