(USNewsMag.com) – On April 12, a high-ranking member of President Biden’s administration said that prejudice toward black people had cost the nation’s economy $16 trillion over the previous two decades.
According to Susan Rice, head of the Domestic Policy Council of the US, prejudice directed toward black citizens has cost the country $16 trillion in lost GDP over the last two decades. If the United States were to make progress in reducing racial disparities, it would contribute $5 trillion dollars to GDP during the following five years.
She cited a Citibank analysis that suggested closing racial inequities in the United States would have resulted in an additional $2.7 trillion in discretionary money, an increase of $13 trillion in company revenue, and the creation of 6.1 million opportunities for new employment annually.
Opponents argue that the report was not a dispassionate analysis of the financial situation but rather an impassioned appeal prepared in September 2020 in the wake of widespread racial unrest.
On February 16, President Biden issued an executive order creating “Agency Equity Teams” as a follow-up to an EO he penned on his initial day as President. Rice’s comments came almost two months after that order was written. One of the mandates of the presidential order issued in February was to guarantee that any government use of AI would promote social justice.
New York Senator Chuck Schumer (D), Kerry Washington, an actress, Al Sharpton, and Benjamin Crump, an attorney, were also at the conference where Rice spoke.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary for the White House, was asked about the administration’s position on reparations on March 21, but she avoided answering.
Democrat Texas Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee sponsored the “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act” (HR 40) on January 9 to investigate reparations. On April 14, 2021, the Judiciary Committee of the House voted on a measure with comparable provisions.
As far as Rice is concerned, everyone wins when every neighborhood has a shot at success.
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