Among the five economists who will determine how much the state will pay black Californians for historic injustices is a professor who has called for statewide reparations of up to $14 trillion.
Other members of the panel of experts advising California’s Reparations Task Force on what they believe is a reasonable amount to be repaid to the descendants of racial discrimination have said there is no such thing as a black middle class, arguing that the Plight of Native Americans is “irrelevant”. ‘
Woke professors William Spriggs, Thomas Craemer, Kaycea Campbell, William A “Sandy” Darity Jr, and his wife, professor Kirstin Mullen, are tasked with quantifying the past economic injustices African Americans have faced and determining how much compensation black Californians should receive for these crimes.
The controversial task force now has until the end of June to deliver its final report, outlining how much black Californians are owed and how many residents are entitled to the funds.
The California Reparations Task Force was established by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020. She now has until the end of June to present her final report
The five members of the so-called panel of experts previously submitted a report detailing the “five harms or atrocities” committed by the state of California against black people and made “rough estimates” of how much their descendants should be rewarded.
Using historical data, the panel of experts calculated that black Californians living in the state between 1933 and 1977 had a real estate wealth gap of $223,239, or $5,074 per year, reports ABC 10.
They also found that the potential lost earnings of incarcerated black Californians from 1971 — the start of then-President Nixon’s drug war — totaled $124,678, or $2,494 per year, to date.
And, the five-person panel of experts argues, because black Californians face disproportionate health consequences with shorter life expectancies than white Californians and black mothers are four times more likely to die in childbirth than other groups, they are entitled to $127,226 a year.
But these are only “rough estimates,” Campbell said at a recent meeting, and the total amount paid out to black Californians could be even higher. It will ultimately be up to the California legislature to approve the payments.
has now taken a closer look at these so-called experts who come up with these numbers.
William Spriggs: Argues ‘Economy is Racist’
William Spriggs, an economics professor at Howard University, has said that economic models inherently contain racist ideals
William Spriggs, a professor and former chair of the Economics Department at Howard University, said economic models inherently carry racist ideals.
At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, he told CNBC that fundamental economic principles perpetuate inequality.
“We ignore the constructs that our society has created,” he argued. “The purpose of these constructs is to create inequality.”
Spriggs recently suggested that people applying for unemployment insurance shouldn’t have to show they’re looking for a job, saying any cuts in unemployment insurance would widen the income gap between blacks and whites.
Despite his views on the field, Spriggs has made a name for himself in the field of economics.
He was appointed assistant secretary of the Office of Policy at the Department of Labor by then-President Barack Obama in 2009 and was a past president of the National Economics Association, an organization of black economists.
Spriggs now serves as chief economist for the AFL-CIO and is a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Thomas Craemer: Calculated $14 trillion in US reparations
Thomas Craemer calculated in 2015 that black Americans owed $14 trillion in reparations
Thomas Craemer, a German expat who teaches public policy at the University of Connecticut, made his mark in 2015 when he published his formula that black Americans are owed $14 trillion in reparations.
He arrived at that number, he said, by tabulating how many hours all slaves in the US worked from the country’s official founding in 1776 to the abolition of slavery, and multiplying it by average wages at the time.
“To me, the modeling helps us capture the scale of the injustice,” he told UConn Magazine in 2019, noting that the amount owed has since risen to $19-20 trillion.
He went on to argue to the Connecticut Mirror that while that’s a large sum of money, “the United States has never shied away from a big project.
Craemer later put his words into action by teaming up with Georgetown University to repay the descendants of 272 slaves.
William Darity Jr. and Kirstin Mullen: Argue that the plight of other races doesn’t matter
William Darity Jr. and his wife Kirstin Mullen wrote in their book that the injustices faced by other racial groups in the United States are “irrelevant” to the urgency of reparations for black people
William Darity Jr. and his wife, professor Kirstin Mullen, literally wrote the book on reparations, arguing that cash payments are the only way to get ahead in American society.
You have said that the costs of slavery run too low in American society, with Darity once implying that there is no such thing as a black middle class – just slightly more affluent marginalized people.
And together they have argued that the injustices committed against black people outweigh any injustices committed against other racial groups.
They acknowledge in their book, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century, that Native Americans “could make a far more costly claim on the American government than black Americans,” possibly including all United States territory States, their demands are “irrelevant” to the urgency of black demands.
Darity now serves as Director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University and Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies and Economics.
According to his online biography, his focus is on racial inequality; class and ethnic stratification economics, schooling and the racial achievement gap; North-South trade and development theories; skin color and labor market outcomes; the economics of reparations; the Atlantic slave trade and the industrial revolution; the history of economics and the social and psychological effects of exposure to unemployment.
Mullen, meanwhile, is a lecturer who travels the country speaking on the need for black reparations.
Kaycea Williams: Economist studying Jamaica
Kaycea Williams, an economics professor at Chapman University, has kept a low profile
Not much is known about Kaycea Williams’ views, but much of her work seems to focus on economic issues in her native country of Jamaica, according to LinkedIn.
She has previously written about public corruption and its impact on the economy.
Williams is now an economics professor at Chapman University and Los Angeles Pierce University and runs a firm called Strategic Economics Analysis.