--- title: "Reparations & the Racial Wealth Gap | A Government That Works for the People" canonical: "https://govthatworks.org/reparations" description: "The book's study-first approach to reparations, the history behind the Black-white wealth gap, possible models of repair, and interactive evidence from Reconstruction to the present." --- Companion research · Chapter 20 # Slavery ended. The economic consequences did not end with it. The book does not prescribe a finished reparations program. It calls for a federal commission to study slavery and its continuing effects, build a public record, and develop proposals for redress. This page goes further into the evidence and the policy designs a commission could examine without converting them into a new book proposal. ![Gordon, an escaped enslaved man, photographed in 1863 showing severe scars across his back](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/ppmsca/54300/54375v.jpg) **1863.** Gordon, an escaped enslaved man, photographed in Baton Rouge by McPherson & Oliver. Library of Congress: no known restrictions on publication. [Source](https://www.loc.gov/item/2018648117/) ![A lynching photograph from 1925 showing a Black victim hanging from a tree.](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Redirect/file/Lynching2.jpg?width=1400) **1925.** Lynching. A Black victim of racial terror lynching. Public-domain image derived from the Library of Congress. [Source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lynching2.jpg) ←→ What the book actually proposes ## A commission first. A remedy after the record is built. Chapter 20 places reparations inside a broader ownership discussion but deliberately stops before choosing a national payment, eligibility rule, or final remedy. That distinction is preserved here. Chapter 20 · An Ownership Society for Everyone > This book does not propose a specific reparations program Instead, the book calls for Congress to establish a federal commission to study the history of slavery and its continuing effects and to develop proposals for redress. It says a lawful public record should precede a national decision about repair, while making clear that universal ownership policies do not foreclose a separate reparations program. **Important distinction:** the interactive options on this page are research examples for public consideration. They do not silently add a cash payment, land grant, eligibility definition, or financing formula to the published book. Step 1 ### Document Build a public record of slavery, later de jure and de facto discrimination, continuing effects, and the quality of evidence for each claimed harm. Step 2 ### Define Determine which injuries are being remedied, who is eligible, what legal authority applies, and how causation and documentation would work. Step 3 ### Recommend Present Congress with costed, administrable remedy options and the strongest objections to each, then require a separate legislative decision. **Federal comparison.** H.R. 40 and S. 40 in the 119th Congress also propose federal study commissions. GovInfo lists H.R. 40 as introduced January 3, 2025 and S. 40 as introduced January 9, 2025, with each referred to its chamber's Judiciary Committee. [H.R. 40](https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-119hr40ih) · [S. 40](https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-119s40is) How the disadvantage compounded ## Emancipation created legal freedom, not an equal stock of land, wealth, power, or opportunity. The mechanisms changed over time. The page separates documented policy history from present-day disparities so that a measured gap is not automatically treated as proof of a single cause. 1865 · Reconstruction ### Land was a possible foundation. Much of it was restored to former owners. The Freedmen's Bureau was created in March 1865 to assist refugees and freedpeople and initially supervised abandoned and confiscated property. Special Field Orders No. 15 had set aside coastal land for freedpeople, but President Andrew Johnson's restoration policies led to thousands being evicted from land distributed under the order by late 1865. [National Archives · Freedmen's Bureau](https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/freedmens-bureau) · [land restoration record](https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2010/summer/slave-pension.html) Mechanism: a very low post-emancipation asset base, combined with reversal of some early land access, limited the property from which later generations could earn returns. 1877–1960s · Jim Crow ### Formal constitutional rights coexisted with disenfranchisement, segregation, and violence. The Library of Congress describes a patchwork of state and local laws and practices that restricted voting and segregated public life. It also notes that segregation was often maintained by uniformed law enforcement and, in other cases, by vigilante violence. [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/jim-crow-segregation/) Mechanism: exclusion from political power, education, labor markets, public services, property markets, and legal protection can affect income and asset accumulation across generations. 1934–1960s · Housing finance ### Federal mortgage policy helped institutionalize redlining. Federal Reserve History describes the FHA as a key architect of federally sponsored redlining from 1934 into the 1960s. Its underwriting guidance treated Black occupancy as a credit risk and encouraged racially restrictive covenants. Public and private redlining were intertwined. [Federal Reserve History](https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/redlining) Mechanism: unequal access to long-term, federally supported mortgage credit could affect homeownership, home equity, neighborhood investment, and inheritances. 1944 onward · GI Bill ### A formally race-blind benefit could deliver unequal opportunity through local institutions. A 2026 NBER working paper estimates that decentralized administration and segregated institutions produced sharply different educational outcomes for Black and White WWII veterans. The authors estimate that the program doubled White veterans' college completion while steering many Black veterans toward lower-return vocational programs. [NBER working paper](https://www.nber.org/papers/w35339) Evidence status: this is recent academic research, not an official federal adjudication of every veteran's experience. The page treats it as an estimate, not a universal description. 1968 onward · Law changes ### Legal discrimination was prohibited, while large ownership gaps remained. The Fair Housing Act prohibited racial discrimination in housing and mortgage lending. Yet homeownership remains unequal: the Census Bureau reported 75.0% for non-Hispanic White Alone householders and 44.0% for Black Alone householders in the first quarter of 2026. [U.S. Census Bureau · Q1 2026](https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf) A current outcome gap does not by itself identify how much is caused by historical discrimination, present discrimination, income, geography, family structure, credit characteristics, or other factors. Present · Credit and justice exposure ### Disparities remain measurable, but the measures need careful interpretation. For a specified conventional home-purchase category, 2023 HMDA data showed denial rates of 16.6% for Black applicants and 5.8% for non-Hispanic White applicants. In local jails at midyear 2024, BJS reported an incarceration rate of 566 per 100,000 Black residents and 149 per 100,000 White residents. Separate 2026 Federal Reserve research finds justice involvement is associated with worse credit and financial outcomes. [CFPB · HMDA](https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/hmda/summary-of-2023-data-on-mortgage-lending/) · [BJS · jails](https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/jail-inmates-2024-statistical-tables/web-report) · [Federal Reserve research](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/financial-well-being-and-inclusion-of-justice-involved-populations-evidence-from-the-shed.htm) Caution: raw lending and incarceration disparities are not, by themselves, estimates of discriminatory intent or a reparations amount. They document differences that a commission could investigate alongside causal evidence. Interactive evidence ## The Black–White wealth gap narrowed dramatically after emancipation, then convergence stalled. Derenoncourt, Kim, Kuhn, and Schularick reconstruct White-to-Black per-capita wealth from 1860 through 2020. Their published work puts the ratio near 7:1 by 1950 and about 6:1 in 2020, with convergence stalling after 1950. Choose the lens ### White-to-Black per-capita wealth ratio A reconstructed long-run series. Lower values mean a narrower wealth gap. 1950–2020 relative wealth 1989–2022 dollars Homeownership **7.31×** 1950: reconstructed White per-capita wealth was about 7.31 times Black per-capita wealth. Animate timeline Derenoncourt, Kim, Kuhn & Schularick, Wealth of Two Nations (QJE 2024; NBER working-paper data). [Open source](https://www.nber.org/papers/w30101) View the chart data as an accessible table Median family wealth · 2022 SCF **White***$285.0k* **Black***$44.9k* The Federal Reserve reports that typical Black family wealth was about 15% of typical White family wealth in the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances. [Federal Reserve](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/greater-wealth-greater-uncertainty-changes-in-racial-inequality-in-the-survey-of-consumer-finances-20231018.html) Homeownership · Q1 2026 **NH White Alone***75.0%* **Black Alone***44.0%* Census estimates, with margins of error of ±0.4 and ±0.9 percentage points respectively. This is a current snapshot, not a causal decomposition. [Census Bureau](https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf) Mortgage denial · 2023 HMDA **Black***16.6%* **NH White***5.8%* For the CFPB's specified first-lien conventional home-purchase category. Raw HMDA differences do not control for every legitimate underwriting factor. [CFPB](https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/hmda/summary-of-2023-data-on-mortgage-lending/) Local-jail incarceration · 2024 **Black***566* **White***149* Rates per 100,000 residents at midyear 2024. BJS reports the Black rate was four times the White rate; 68% of all jail inmates were unconvicted. [Bureau of Justice Statistics](https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/jail-inmates-2024-statistical-tables/web-report) Crime statistics & race ### Counts, population shares, victimization, arrests, and sentencing answer different questions. No single national dataset supports a blanket statement that one racial group “commits more crime” than another. The result changes with the offense, the year, and what is being measured. The comparisons below use the newest national or federal sources that can support each statement. Nonfatal violent incidents · NCVS 2024 **White offenders***2.32M*46.9% of incidents **Black offenders***1.37M*27.7% of incidents In raw estimated counts, more violent incidents involved offenders perceived by victims as non-Hispanic White than non-Hispanic Black. But the same BJS table reports White people as 59.7% of the survey population and Black people as 12.2%, so an absolute-count comparison and a population-relative comparison are not the same thing. Offender race was unknown in 19% of incidents. [Bureau of Justice Statistics](https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/criminal-victimization-2024) Sexual abuse · federal sentencing FY2025 **White***54.9%*773 sentenced **Black***15.6%*219 sentenced Among 1,407 people federally sentenced in the U.S. Sentencing Commission's “Sexual Abuse” category in fiscal year 2025, White individuals were the largest racial group. This is a federal sentencing statistic, not an estimate of all sexual offending in the United States. [U.S. Sentencing Commission](https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/federal-sentencing-statistics/quarterly-sentencing-updates/USSC_2025_Quarterly_Report_Final.pdf) Domestic / intimate-partner violence **No clean current national White-vs.-Black perpetrator count** The national NCVS reports intimate-partner violence but does not provide a simple current race-of-perpetrator table comparable to the violent-incident table above. CDC's NISVS publishes race-specific *victimization* prevalence; those figures describe who reports being victimized and should not be used to infer the perpetrator's race. [BJS NCVS](https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/criminal-victimization-2024)[CDC NISVS](https://www.cdc.gov/nisvs/documentation/NISVSReportonIPV_2022.pdf) **What the data do and do not show.** In absolute counts, White offenders are more numerous in some categories shown here, but not in all of them. Population shares, victim reports, arrests, prosecutions, and sentences are different measures and can point in different directions. None of these tables identifies race itself as a cause of criminal behavior. What could have been? ## The honest counterfactual is narrower than “what if racism never existed?” A single model cannot credibly erase slavery, Reconstruction's retreat, Jim Crow, housing exclusion, unequal schooling, labor-market differences, violence, lending, and justice-system exposure all at once. The research does provide one useful benchmark. Published research benchmark ### Equal wealth-accumulation conditions after emancipation Princeton's summary of the Derenoncourt research reports that if Black and White Americans had experienced identical savings and capital-gain rates after emancipation, the 2020 wealth gap would still be roughly 3:1 because the starting wealth difference was so large. The observed 2020 reconstruction is about 5.7:1. Explore the distance between the endpointsObserved 2020 endpoint Observed 2020 · 5.72:1Equal-accumulation benchmark · ~3:1 White wealth per $1 Black wealth**5.72×** Black wealth per $1 White wealth**17¢** White**$1.00** Black**model** **Do not read the slider as a damages estimate.** Intermediate slider positions are only visual interpolation between two published endpoints. The model does not assign dollar values to individual policies, and it is not a reparations formula. Channels a full historical inquiry would have to examine ### The parts that cannot simply be added together Land and the post-emancipation asset base What would broad, secure land ownership after emancipation have changed about farming income, collateral, inheritance, migration, and later homeownership? Political and civil equality How would sustained voting rights, equal legal protection, and freedom from Jim Crow violence have changed public investment, labor bargaining power, education, and property security? Housing and mortgage credit How much of later home-equity and neighborhood-investment differences are attributable to redlining, restrictive covenants, segregation, credit access, income, geography, and their interactions? Education and veterans' opportunity How should researchers separate the effects of segregated institutions, GI Bill administration, school quality, labor-market discrimination, and family resources? Justice-system and lending exposure Which present disparities reflect discriminatory rules or administration, which reflect other factors, and through what mechanisms do justice contact and credit access affect employment, debt, housing, and wealth? Possible forms of repair ## “Reparations” is not one program. Different proposals answer different questions about the injury being repaired, eligibility, delivery, cost, legal authority, and what counts as success. The explorer below presents documented policy families without ranking or endorsing them. Study commission Direct compensation Land / property Housing repair Community wealth Institutional repair California · 2023 ### State task-force report California's task force documented a broad range of historical harms and recommended numerous policy changes, a formal apology, a curriculum, and methodologies for potential payments to its defined community of eligibility. [California DOJ](https://oag.ca.gov/node/568620) New York · current process ### Research and public hearings New York's legislatively created Community Commission is conducting research and public engagement. The state says activities will continue through January 2027 before the process is completed. [New York State](https://www.ny.gov/programs/new-york-state-community-commission-reparations-remedies) Evanston · local program ### Restorative housing Evanston created a local reparations fund and made housing and economic development the first area of implementation, connecting the program to the city's history of discriminatory housing policy. [City of Evanston](https://www.cityofevanston.org/government/initiatives/evanston_local_reparations.php) What a serious commission would have to answer ## The difficult work begins after the word “reparations.” The book's Six Tests provide a useful discipline: define the problem, assign responsibility, design the user experience, finance the policy, anticipate harms, and decide how success will be measured. 1. What exactly is the injury being repaired? Enslavement itself; uncompensated labor; denied land; Jim Crow exclusion; housing discrimination; unequal public administration; documented property loss; continuing effects; or several separate injuries? Different definitions imply different evidence and remedies. 2. Who is eligible, and why? Lineal descendants of people enslaved in the United States, descendants of free Black Americans harmed by later discrimination, people with documented individual injury, affected communities, or some combination? A commission would need administrable documentation and an appeals process. 3. What causal standard is appropriate? Historical responsibility is not identical to proving the cause of every present-day dollar of wealth. A credible process would state where the evidence is strong, where it is probabilistic, and where precise attribution is not possible. 4. What form of repair fits each documented harm? Cash, land, housing assistance, property restitution, debt relief, business capital, education, health initiatives, institutional reform, formal acknowledgment, or combinations may address different injuries differently. 5. What legal vehicle survives review? A federal statute would need a carefully developed record, a defined governmental interest, an eligibility design, administrable standards, and constitutional analysis specific to the remedy chosen. The published book does not claim to have completed that legal drafting. 6. How is it financed and administered? Any material program requires a budget, delivery agency, fraud safeguards, documentation rules, privacy protection, appeals, and a plan for administrative capacity. A study commission itself is a smaller first-stage statute; later remedies would have their own fiscal choices. 7. What would success look like? Completion of compensation? Restored property? Reduced wealth or homeownership gaps? Increased business ownership? Improved credit access? Better health or education outcomes? A program needs measures tied to the injury it claims to address. 8. What evidence would change the policy? The commission should publish uncertainty, competing estimates, and failure conditions. If evidence shows a proposed remedy does not reach the harmed population or does not produce the intended outcome, the design should be revised rather than defended by intention alone. What remains contested ## The evidence can narrow the argument without pretending it eliminates the argument. There are both empirical and normative disagreements. This page separates them instead of presenting a chart as if it resolves a moral or constitutional question by itself. ### Eligibility There is no single agreed national rule for who would qualify. Descent, direct documented injury, historical residence, and community-based eligibility produce different populations and administrative burdens. ### Quantification Researchers can estimate historical wealth gaps and model counterfactuals, but there is no universally accepted method that converts all historical harms into one precise present-day dollar amount. ### Universal vs. targeted policy Universal wealth-building can reduce poverty and expand ownership, while reparations arguments focus on repair for a specific historical wrong. The book treats those as related but distinct questions. ### Constitutional design Race-conscious public programs raise constitutional questions that depend on the remedy, the governmental record, the classification used, and current doctrine. A commission report would need legal analysis alongside economic evidence. ### Causation today Present disparities can reflect multiple interacting mechanisms. Historical discrimination is documented; assigning a percentage of today's gap to any one policy requires additional causal work and often cannot be done exactly. ### Fiscal tradeoffs A remedy's size, financing source, timing, and administrative design would affect public budgets and other priorities. The book therefore does not fold an unspecified reparations cost into its existing fiscal model. Research ledger ## Primary records, federal data, and clearly labeled academic estimates. The book retains its September 20, 2026 source freeze. This companion page was assembled September 21, 2026 and identifies newer page-level data separately rather than back-dating it into the book. **Evidence key.** Archival and agency sources document laws, official actions, or measured outcomes. Academic sources estimate effects or reconstruct historical data. Counterfactual results are models, not observations. Legislative examples are proposals unless the source says they became law. 1. **A Government That Works for the People, Chapter 20.** Book position: federal commission to study redress; no specific reparations program selected. [Book PDF](/downloads/book.pdf#page=202) 2. **Derenoncourt, Kim, Kuhn & Schularick.** Continuous White-to-Black per-capita wealth series, 1860–2020; published in the *Quarterly Journal of Economics* in 2024. [NBER](https://www.nber.org/papers/w30101) 3. **Princeton University.** Nontechnical research summary reporting about 7:1 in 1950, about 6:1 in 2020, and an approximately 3:1 equal-accumulation benchmark. [Princeton](https://economics.princeton.edu/working-papers/wealth-of-two-nations-the-u-s-racial-wealth-gap-1860-2020/) 4. **Federal Reserve, 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances.** Median wealth and historical SCF wealth series by race and ethnicity. [Accessible data](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/greater-wealth-greater-uncertainty-changes-in-racial-inequality-in-the-survey-of-consumer-finances-accessible-20231018.htm) 5. **National Archives.** Freedmen's Bureau history and federal records concerning Special Field Orders No. 15 and subsequent restoration of distributed land. [Bureau records](https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/freedmens-bureau) · [land history](https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2010/summer/slave-pension.html) 6. **Library of Congress.** Jim Crow and segregation historical background, including disenfranchisement and enforcement by law enforcement and vigilante violence. [LOC](https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/jim-crow-segregation/) 7. **Federal Reserve History.** History of redlining and the FHA's role in institutionalizing discriminatory mortgage practices. [Federal Reserve History](https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/redlining) 8. **Althoff & Szerman, NBER Working Paper 35339 (2026).** Estimated racial differences in the educational and intergenerational effects of the WWII GI Bill. [NBER](https://www.nber.org/papers/w35339) 9. **U.S. Census Bureau, Housing Vacancy Survey.** First-quarter 2026 homeownership by race and ethnicity of householder. [Q1 2026 release](https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf) 10. **CFPB / FFIEC, 2023 HMDA.** Mortgage application and denial data by race and ethnicity for defined loan categories. [CFPB](https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/hmda/summary-of-2023-data-on-mortgage-lending/) 11. **Bureau of Justice Statistics, Jail Inmates in 2024.** Local jail incarceration rates and conviction-status statistics. [BJS](https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/jail-inmates-2024-statistical-tables/web-report) 12. **Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal Victimization, 2024.** National Crime Victimization Survey incident estimates, including victim-perceived offender race and Hispanic origin. [BJS](https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/criminal-victimization-2024) 13. **U.S. Sentencing Commission, Fiscal Year 2025.** Race of federally sentenced individuals by type of crime, including Sexual Abuse. [USSC](https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/federal-sentencing-statistics/quarterly-sentencing-updates/USSC_2025_Quarterly_Report_Final.pdf) 14. **CDC, National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey.** National intimate-partner-violence victimization measures by victim characteristics; used here to distinguish victimization data from perpetrator-race data. [CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/nisvs/documentation/NISVSReportonIPV_2022.pdf) 15. **Federal Reserve FEDS 2026-024.** Research on associations between justice-system involvement, financial well-being, credit scores, and access to credit. [Federal Reserve](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/financial-well-being-and-inclusion-of-justice-involved-populations-evidence-from-the-shed.htm) 16. **H.R. 40 and S. 40, 119th Congress.** Introduced federal reparations-study commission bills. [House](https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-119hr40ih) · [Senate](https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-119s40is) 17. **H.R. 7927, 119th Congress.** Introduced March 12, 2026 as the Land Reparations Commission Act; GovInfo lists referral to House Judiciary. [GovInfo](https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-119hr7927ih) 18. **California Department of Justice.** 2023 final report and recommendations of the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans. [Final report](https://oag.ca.gov/node/553926) 19. **New York State.** Community Commission on Reparations Remedies, public hearings, research, and current timeline. [Commission](https://www.ny.gov/programs/new-york-state-community-commission-reparations-remedies) 20. **City of Evanston.** Local reparations fund and Restorative Housing Program. [City program](https://www.cityofevanston.org/government/initiatives/evanston_local_reparations.php) 21. **Library of Congress photograph.** Gordon, Baton Rouge, April 2, 1863; rights advisory: no known restrictions on publication. [LOC image record](https://www.loc.gov/item/2018648117/) 22. **Hero slideshow image set.** Additional archival images shown in the rotating panel are drawn from Wikimedia Commons and Library of Congress records for lynching-era violence, the Tulsa Race Massacre, segregation, redlining, the March on Washington, the Poor People's Campaign, and the Memphis sanitation workers struggle. Key records include [Lynching image](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lynching2.jpg), [Tulsa](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tulsa_race_riot_inflames-1921.jpg), [redlining map](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holc_redlining_1937.jpeg), and [March on Washington](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:March_on_Washington_edit.jpg). [Read the site's research method](/method)Submit a correction or research note The Strongest Counterargument & Our Response ### Best case against A national reparations program raises contested questions of eligibility, causation, valuation, constitutional design, financing, and whether race-targeted remedies are preferable to universal wealth-building policy. ### The author's response The book therefore does not prescribe a finished payment program. It proposes a federal commission to build a public record and develop proposals for redress before Congress chooses a remedy, while keeping universal ownership policy analytically separate. ### What remains uncertain No single counterfactual can establish with precision what each household would own today absent the specific historic policies discussed on the page.