Dr Phil on Tuesday warned an economics professor’s plan for $350,000 in reparations to 40 million descendants of slaves would be ‘an absolute disaster’, arguing that giving a lump sum was not the best way to help anyone.
The television host on Tuesday invited on his show Duke University’s William Darity, who co-authored the book ‘From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century’.
Darity suggested the US government issue the funds in much the same way it sent out checks to millions of Americans during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, at a cost of $14 trillion.
Dr Phil challenged Darity’s plan, arguing that people would mismanage the money.
‘I can tell you from a psychological perspective that if you take $350,000 or $840,000, and you write a check to any group of people – black, white, poor, homeless, whatever – you give any group of people that much money and say, ”there you go, best of luck,” you come back in six months, they’re going to be broke,’ he said.
‘Whatever reparations are done, that would be an absolute disaster, as opposed to guidance and help in creating generational wealth, as opposed to income.’
Dr. Phil challenged Professor William Darity’s claims, saying it was a bad idea to give any group of people a lump sum of cash and expect them to invest and spend it wisely
Darity accused Dr Phil of unfairly preventing black people from accessing what was rightfully theirs.
‘No one ever says that there’s going to be mismanagement of funds when we’re talking about the distribution of reparations payments to other communities,’ Darity said.
The TV doctor replied: ‘I just said it.
‘I just said, ‘you give that money to anybody, they’re going to mismanage it. They’re going to blow it.”
He added: ‘Look at the fraud that just occurred with all of the money that was given in support of COVID.’
Darity had suggested that checks could be sent out, similar to those distributed during the pandemic.
‘It would be paid by the federal government in the same way in which the federal government has met the expenses that were paid out for the purposes of trying to deal with the great recession and also, most recently, with the economic downturn associated with the great pandemic,’ he said.
Darity said if the $14 trillion was distributed evenly across 40 million people whose ancestors were in the chattel slavery system it would equal about $350K per person.
Professor William Darity teaches economics at Duke University. On a Tuesday panel of the Dr. Phil show he argued that the US federal government should spend $14trillion on a massive reparations program for 40million black Americans
He said the amount ‘should be dictated by the disparity in wealth between black and white Americans, which at the current moment amounts to in excess of $840,000 per household.’
Darity said the ‘objective’ of the program would be to ‘eliminate the racial wealth gap in the United States.’
The U.S. government is currently more than $31 trillion in debt.
Political writer Joshua Ferguson, who was also featured on Tuesday’s panel with Dr. Phil, said the country could not afford the massive reparation bill.
‘First of all, the US government doesn’t have money,’ Ferguson said.
‘All of their money comes from taxes. To say you’re not going to take it from people today, you’re right. You’re going to take it from future generations.’
Renowned author and civil rights activist Bob Woodson also criticized Darity’s plan, saying: ‘I cannot think of any group of people who have been made wealthy by just transferring money to them.’
There are just over 40 million black Americans in the US, so Darity’s figure assumes each of them is a descendant of American slavery.
However, according to a Pew Research Center study from April 2022, just 57 percent of black Americans believe they are descendants of American slavery.
Darity said the program would function similarly to the COVID payments received by millions of Americans. The payments would eventually be felt by current and future taxpayers
The idea of compensating black Americans for slavery-era sins has been floated numerous times over the years.
In January, San Francisco proposed $5 million payouts to every longtime black resident, provoking uproar.
Cities including Boston, Massachusetts, St Paul, Minnesota, and St Louis, Missouri, as well as Los Angeles, have set up task forces and panels to hatch their own reparations plans.