Can baby bonds address the injustice of racial wealth disparities?

Abstract

The injustices that have been visited upon racial minorities in the United States have a substantial economic legacy, both in terms of wealth disparities and resulting structural differences in economic opportunities. In response, some prominent Black scholars and policymakers have proposed a ‘baby bonds’ wealth-building policy. In this paper, I complement the economic justifications for this policy by examining the case for the proposal in terms of racial justice. The common justifications in the literature use a ‘justice as rectification’ framework, but this framework is a poor fit for the baby bonds proposal, unless we first examine the policy as a way to mitigate barriers to economic opportunity caused by persistent wealth gaps. This analysis focuses the case for baby bonds on their real selling point: a universal wealth policy can limit the intergenerational impact of injustice and misfortune of all kinds.