Closing the Racial Wealth Gap: A Counterfactual Historical Simulation of Universal Inheritance

Abstract

Since the end of the civil rights movement, the United States has not made meaningful progress toward closing the racial wealth gap. Without deliberate policy intervention, this gap will likely persist. Racial justice activists and policymakers, aiming in part to close this gap, have put forth various reparations programs. Others have proposed race-neutral wealth redistribution policies that also promise to address the gap, but as an indirect consequence of redistributing wealth in general. The potential impact of this second set of proposals on racial wealth inequality remains understudied. This article addresses this deficit through counterfactual historical simulation: By assessing the thirty-year impact of these race-neutral proposals, it finds significant reductions in the racial wealth gap over a generation. Yet these race-neutral programs have limitations vis-à-vis the broader goals of racial justice; this article concludes by emphasizing the unique capacities of reparations programs to address these limitations.