(LibertySociety.com) – A new YouGov poll shows a waning support for reparations to black Americans. Back in 2019, around 39 percent of Americans believed that reparations should be paid. The new poll shows that the number has dropped significantly over the last four years, with just 31 percent saying that were in favor of the payments. However, 36 percent of respondents believe that if reparations are going to be paid, they should come from the private companies that they believe were the beneficiaries of slavery. Most people who are opposed to reparations told surveyors that putting a price on the effects of slavery would be challenging.
Others who opposed reparations said that their reasoning was due to the equal treatment and pay that black Americans receive in the United States today. Michael Kraus, who is a social psychologist at Yale University, said that respondents’ beliefs about equal wealth between black and white Americans are “totally inconsistent with reality.” Black and white Americans also have different views regarding the impact of slavery on the United States. Sixty-five percent of black Americans believe that the wealth of the United States is partially because of slavery, while just 33 percent of white Americans feel that way.
One response was almost even across the board, with 50 percent of respondents saying that slavery is influential in society to this day. The same amount also said that there is still racial discrimination in the United States. Thirty-five percent of white Americans believe that the government owes black people an apology, as opposed to 77 percent of black people. Another problem with reparations is the inability to know which black Americans are descendants of slaves, a thought that likely impacted the question about making payments to all black Americans. Only 24 percent of respondents said that reparations should be paid to all black Americans, regardless of whether they can be traced to an enslaved person. That overall response is in stark contrast to the 69 percent of black Americans who feel that a family history of slavery is irrelevant and that payments should still be made to all black Americans. Congressional Democrats voted in committee in the 117th Congress to study reparations but never brought the bill to the floor for a full vote. Radical progressive Democrat Missouri Representative Cori Bush introduced legislation this year to pay $14 trillion in reparations to black Americans.
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