Can San Fran afford reparations?

Later this year, San Francisco Supervisors will consider an ambitious plan to make reparations to black residents to compensate them for the lingering effects of slavery and more recent discriminatory public policies. While other Cato scholars have commented more generally on reparations at the national level and in San Francisco, I will focus here on the fiscal implications and the local economic impact.

A Hoover institution analysis of the plan estimates its cost at $200 billion, with most of the expense attributable to the recommended $5 million cash payment to each eligible individual. Because the recommendations have not been fully fleshed out, Hoover’s estimate is necessarily speculative, but appears to be the best available. San Francisco’s reparations committee has yet to provide a financial analysis, stating that “it is not its job to figure out how to finance San Francisco’s atonement and repair.”