Expanded wartime income taxes funded benefits that excluded black Americans

Evidence

After the war, the new taxation system stayed in place, creating an expanded income tax base. Federal revenue from individual income taxes increased exponentially: from 400 million in 1934 to almost 30 billion in 1954.16 The flood of new revenue allowed the federal government to provide additional services. Returning service members could use GI benefits to attend college for free, and their families could become homeowners thanks to loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Between 1944 and 1971, federal spending for the GI Bill totaled more than $95 billion. But even as black Americans paid into the system, they were unable to reap its benefits. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 49

Categorization

• XREF: Pairs directly with the ‘structural racism as mechanism’ framing in the reading purpose — taxed-in, benefits-out is the engine of the whole argument.