(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



REPORT: Still A Dream: Over 500 Years to Black Economic Equality [1]

[]

Date: 2023-08-16 10:01:57+00:00

There are a wide range of solutions necessary to narrow the racial economic divide. The five that we believe would make the most difference are:

A push for full employment and guaranteed jobs.

A massive land and homeownership program.

A commitment to individual asset building.

Policies to reduce dynastic concentrations of wealth and power.

Targeted reparations and universal health care.

Full Employment and Guaranteed Jobs

A federal jobs guarantee would provide universal job coverage for all adults and eliminate involuntary unemployment. It would offer existing workers a viable alternative to jobs with low wages, inadequate benefits, and undesirable working conditions. Moreover, the work would be used to create and improve our nation’s physical and human infrastructure, in the spirit of the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression.

To maximize the impact on reducing Black unemployment and narrow the racial earnings gap, the program should:

Be funded and administered by the federal government.

Provide technical assistance to the most economically disadvantaged communities.

Provide longer term subsidies, as long as 10 years, along with economic development support.

Subsidize only net new jobs at prevailing wages.

Include public agencies, nonprofit organizations, and for-profit companies as eligible for wage subsidies.

Target communities with persistently low prime-age employment.

Land and Homeownership

Expanding access to land and home ownership is a critical intervention in reversing the multi-generational nature of the Black-white wealth divide. As our report has shown, the legacy of discrimination in mortgage lending, redlining, steering and appraisal differentials has thwarted progress.

To restore progress, we’ll need:

Targeted federal housing policies like the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act, which would provide down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers living in formerly redlined or officially segregated areas.

Federal legislation like the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act, which would create a federal tax credit to cover the “appraisal gap” that significantly devalues homes in majority-Black neighborhoods.

Luxury transfer taxes on extremely high-end property sales to fund affordable housing.

Individual Asset Building

Individual wealth inequalities should be addressed through bold multi-generational approaches.

Individual asset accounts, sometimes called Baby Bonds when they are initiated at childhood, are an essential program to address historical injustices that undergird the current racial wealth divide. They could be administered in a manner that is universal but race conscious.

To truly effect the deep multi-generational asset poverty seen in the African American community, baby bonds would need to be widespread throughout the community and have returns in the tens of thousands of dollars — money that could then be reinvested in wealth building opportunities.

Senator Cory Booker and U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley have introduced the American Opportunity Accounts Act, a federal baby bond program that would provide an initial $1,000 for every U.S.-born child, with additional amounts up to $3,000 deposited for the lowest income children. States are also exploring similar legislation.

Breaking Up Concentrated Wealth

The growing concentration of wealth has translated to a growing concentration of economic and political power by the ultra-wealthy, those in the top one-tenth of one percent. This tiny, overwhelmingly white group has been the primary beneficiary of the past five decades of economic growth and of historically low tax rates.

Significantly raising taxes on the ultra-wealthy serves both the intrinsic value of reducing the corrupting influence of plutocratic power, as well as the instrumental value of producing significant public revenue that can be invested in creating wealth building opportunities for those who have been blocked from generating wealth.

Another corrective action would be to eliminate the set of federal tax subsidies, estimated at over $600 billion per year, that dramatically skew to the benefit of the ultra-wealthy and affluent. Shifting these tax expenditures toward wealth-building programs for people with low-levels of wealth, particularly those of color, would have a monumental impact in reducing the racial wealth divide and solving economic inequality more broadly.

Reparations

Many of the solutions described here are universally targeted and broadly accessible to all low-wage and low-wealth households. Reparations solutions are directly targeted to African American households to repair historical and present-day wealth disparities. Communities across the nation — from San Francisco to Evanston, Illinois — are exploring what reparations might entail.

But only the federal government has the financial capacity to undertake the broad and bold endeavors necessary to address the deep-rooted issue of white socioeconomic supremacy.

The funding for reparations can primarily come from taxes and fees levied on the ultra-wealthy who have benefitted from windfall income and wealth gains, not ordinary working taxpayers. A national Reparations Trust Fund could be financed from a graduated tax on wealth and inherited assets, the closure of tax loopholes, and penalties for high-end tax evasion.

The first step toward a national reparations policy would be for Congress to establish a national commission to examine the legacy of slavery and propose reparations and reconciliation programs funded by breaking up concentrated wealth in the United States.

Universal Health Care

People of color accounted for more than half of the total 32 million nonelderly uninsured in 2016. Poor access to health care and poor health outcomes are inextricably tied to race in the United States.

The privatized healthcare system in the United States continues to leave behind millions of families despite progress made by the Affordable Care Act. This deeply unfair and immoral system leaves low-income and low-wealth people in the most vulnerable position. The number one cause of bankruptcy is an illness to oneself or a family member.

Medicare for All removes the burden and stigma associated with finances at the point of the delivery of medical care. Medicare for All would guarantee high quality healthcare as a human right, not a privilege.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://ips-dc.org/report-still-a-dream-500-years-black-economic-equality/

Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/