Suddenly the country has descended into a paroxysm of guilt over the situation of African Americans, particularly the fact that as a group they have not caught up to whites or other ethnic groups in average income or wealth. Accusations of “systemic racism” or even “white supremacy” are everywhere, particularly issuing from the Black Lives Matter movement.

And accompanying the accusations are newly insistent demands for more spending on government programs and redistribution schemes of every sort. More for housing programs, more for social work programs, more for education programs, more for homelessness programs, and on and on. Perhaps the ultimate such demand is the demand for “reparations,” which as far as I can tell means very large but unspecified amounts of free cash simply handed over to every African American in the country. Exemplifying this last demand is the cover story from the New York Times Magazine this past Sunday, written by Nikole Hannah-Jones (she of the fraudulent “1619 Project”) with the title “What Is Owed.” Most of the piece is about why if you have any moral compass whatsoever you must feel guilty, guilty, guilty. Only at the very end do we get to the punch line:

If black lives are to truly matter in America, this nation must move beyond slogans and symbolism. Citizens don’t inherit just the glory of their nation, but its wrongs too. A truly great country does not ignore or excuse its sins. It confronts them and then works to make them right. If we are to be redeemed, if we are to live up to the magnificent ideals upon which we were founded, we must do what is just. It is time for this country to pay its debt. It is time for reparations.

Yes, you have inherited the sins of your ancestors, and the only way to redeem yourself is by handing over vast piles of cash. How much? No amounts are mentioned here. I guess you should start with a few trillion, and then we’ll tell you if it was enough. It won’t have been. Then hand over a few trillion more, and we’ll continue from there.

Even assuming that resources are infinite, is there any reason to believe that this kind of thing can ever meaningfully improve the lives of current and future African Americans in this country?

This seems like an appropriate time to remind readers that this site contains a treasure trove of posts giving details of the enormous amounts of means-tested anti-poverty and redistribution programs already in existence in this country (currently running in the range of $1.2 trillion per year if federal, state and local spending are all included), and of the total failure of any of those programs or any of that spending to alleviate poverty of African Americans or other poor Americans to any meaningful degree. The $1.2 trillion comes to some $30,000 for each of the 40 million or so people said to be in “poverty” by the official definition, or some $120,000 for each “poor” family of four. With the official “poverty threshold” most recently (2019) set at $25,750 for a family of four, how is this even possible?

My posts on this subject, some going back as far as 2012, are collected under the “Poverty” tag in the Archive section. But since there are some 119 posts under that tag, I’ll just give a few highlights for today:

• From November 25, 2019, “No Amount Of Disastrous Failure Can Kill The Fantasy Of A Government-Directed ‘Great Society’”. Excerpt:  “And it’s not just that all the government spending has not reduced the measured rate of poverty nor the number of people in poverty. It’s that the failures of the anti-poverty and Great Society programs are well-documented and out there for everybody to see and study. Medicaid beneficiaries have no better health outcomes than non-beneficiaries; job training program beneficiaries have no better job prospects than non-beneficiaries; Head Start program beneficiaries have no better educational outcomes than non-beneficiaries; etc., etc., etc. And on top of all that, where the goal of all the spending was to achieve societal justice and harmony through redistribution of resources, instead we have only fomented anger and resentment in the program beneficiaries.”

• From January 16, 2018, “Surprise: Progressive ‘Anti-Poverty’ Programs Increase Measured Poverty”. Excerpt: “Nearly all "anti-poverty" handouts are provided to the beneficiaries either as in-kind distributions (housing assistance, food stamps, other nutrition programs, Medicaid, cell phones, clothing assistance, energy assistance) or as refundable tax credits (EITC).  But the official poverty measure only counts "cash income" in the definition, and therefore excludes all of these things.  A given family could get $100,000 or more per year in the in-kind benefits and tax credits (and many do, such as those here in Manhattan, where a spot in public housing in a desirable location can by itself be worth over $100,000 per year), and still be counted as "in poverty."

• From March 16, 2017, “Here’s What’s ‘Cruel’: Trapping The Poor In A Lifetime Of Dependency.” Excerpt: “[From the New York Times] you get the idea.  The little people are incapable of facing any downside risk of life on their own.  Any failure of the federal government to accept and provide for any and all downside risks of life, right down to a couple of aspirin to help with a headache, is "cruel."  It's "heartless."  It's "a humanitarian crisis." 

• From October 16, 2016, “It Sounded So Good When They Promised To Solve All Of Our Problems”. Excerpt: “[A]fter 80 or so years of promises and tens of trillions spent, have any of the major problems been solved?  Of course, it's the opposite.  Indeed, it's fair to say that all of the big government redistribution programs are in crisis.  A trillion dollars of annual spending on "poverty" and there are close to twice as many people today said to be in poverty than the day the War on Poverty started.  Medicaid, supposed to be a temporary thing for a few years until poverty was eliminated, instead explodes bigger and bigger every year (now at over $550 billion per year and still rapidly growing). . . .”

• From August 7, 2016, “A Culture Of Cheating . . .” Excerpt: (quoting from one Dalia Ramos, who lives in a public housing project in Puerto Rico): “The projects were built to house the working poor, like [Ms. Ramos], but over time they have cultivated a beat-the-system culture, in which working off the books and lying about your income means getting more money from Washington.  ‘I have all these people around me who don’t pay anything,”’she says. ‘They just hang out.’”

• From April 28 and 29, 2015 (the time of the riots in Baltimore following the death of Freddy Gray), “Do You Think That The Government Can Fix Poverty? Look At Baltimore” and “Can The Government Fix Poverty? — Part II”. Excerpt (from April 28): “As befits its status as a relatively poor city, Baltimore has long "benefited" -- if you want to use that term -- from more than its pro rata share of the government programs and handouts supposedly designed to cure poverty.  [In the U.S.] about 14% of the population [is on food stamps].  In Baltimore . . . it's more like 35%.  Or consider public housing.  According to HUD's website here, well less than 1% of U.S. families live in public housing.  In Baltimore, it's more like 4.5%.” From April 29, 2015: “[In Baltimore] the high school student absence rate hovers at 49.3%.  How did it get there?  Baltimore of course follows the Democrat model of government-monopoly unionized public schools.  According to figures compiled by the Baltimore Sun in 2013, Baltimore in 2011 ranked second among the nation's 100 largest school districts in per student spending.” Plenty more at the links.

There’s plenty more if you want to go through the archives. Have at it!