States divert welfare block grants into noncash benefits to avoid helping black recipients

Evidence

Higher levels of poverty result from lower levels of investment in aid programs that benefit the poor because aid programs disproportionately benefit black Americans. For example, when those high-poverty states receive block grants from the federal government for welfare funding, their governments are more likely to allocate the grant money to noncash benefits, rather than to cash that would go directly into the pockets of those most in need. Noncash benefits are a kind of loophole and can include things like programs on “fatherhood or two parent family formation” that pay people, sometimes as much as six-figure salaries, to give motivational speeches in schools about being a good student, behaving “right,” and making good decisions. Policy choices like these result in increased poverty rates for black Americans, but they also lead to higher poverty rates for white people. Refusing to invest in anti-poverty programs hurts black and nonblack citizens alike. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 433

Categorization

• XREF: The noncash-benefit loophole (six-figure motivational speakers) is a concrete, defensible mechanism — exactly the kind of evidence Brown needs to rebut the objection that ‘no one is discriminating anymore.’