SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Reparations Task Force made headlines around the world this week as economic advisers to the group presented estimates that the state’s African American residents have suffered at least $800 billion in losses as a result of inequities in policing, criminal sentences, housing policies and more.
The dollar figure is nearly three times the size of California’s 2022-23 budget. Was this how much the state of California would be expected to pay in reparations?
Public policy expert Thomas Craemer of the University of Connecticut and other experts said they are still working on formulating methods to quantify just how much California descendants of U.S. slaves have been set back financially as a result of a long list of harms and atrocities the task force has identified, so the numbers are subject to change.
