Methodology
How the outstanding balance is calculated
The figure on the front page is an estimate drawn from published scholarship, compounded forward from a stated anchor date. It is not a legal judgment, not a settled number, and not the only defensible one. This page shows the arithmetic and names what it leaves out.
The formula
V(t) = $14,000,000,000,000 × (1 + 0.045)years since 1 January 2023
Where the base figure comes from
$14 trillion is the estimate given publicly in January 2023 by economists William A. Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen, authors of From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2020; second edition 2023).
Their method is wealth-gap closure: the sum required to eliminate the racial wealth gap between Black American descendants of persons enslaved in the United States and white Americans. The book itself targets a range of $10–12 trillion; the $14 trillion figure reflects their later public updating. It works out to roughly $350,000 per eligible person across approximately 40 million eligible people.
Darity and Mullen's eligibility standard is lineage-based — documented descent from persons enslaved in the United States — which is why this estimate, rather than a race-based one, anchors a lineage-based ledger.
Other published estimates
Reparations scholarship does not converge on one number, and any site presenting a single figure to the cent owes readers the spread.
| Method | Scholar | Estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Wealth-gap closure | Darity & Mullen (2020, updated 2023) | $10–14T |
| Enslaved labor hours × free-labor wages, 3% compound | Thomas Craemer (2015) | $5.9–14.2T |
| Price-based, updated (2018 dollars) | Craemer (2020) | $13.2T |
| Wage-based, updated (2018 dollars) | Craemer (2020) | $18.6T |
Across the wider literature, published methods range from roughly $6 trillion to over $100 trillion depending on what is counted, what interest rate is applied, and over what period.
Why 4.5 percent
An unpaid debt accrues. The rate chosen determines almost everything about the result, so the choice is stated rather than buried.
- 4.5% — 30-year U.S. Treasury. Used here. The rate at which the United States government borrows: the most conservative defensible choice, and the one hardest to characterize as punitive.
- 3% — conservative long-run. The rate Craemer applies in his labor-hours model.
- 6% — the Georgetown rate. The documented rate attached to Georgetown University's 1838 sale of 272 enslaved people. A real, provenance-anchored historical rate.
- 21.5% — average U.S. credit-card APR. What American lenders charge American consumers on unpaid balances today.
All four are selectable on the front page. The figure is model-dependent, and a number presented to the cent owes the reader its range. Showing the spread is more honest than publishing one number and hoping nobody asks how it was chosen.
| Scenario | Balance today | Per second |
|---|---|---|
| 3.0% conservative | ~$15.6T | ~$14,600 |
| 4.5% Treasury (default) | ~$16.4T | ~$22,800 |
| 6.0% Georgetown, 1838 | ~$17.2T | ~$31,800 |
| 21.5% credit-card APR | ~$28.0T | ~$172,600 |
Figures as of 2026-07-21; all four grow continuously. The spread between the lowest and highest scenario is roughly $12 trillion — which is the point. The rate is an assumption, not a fact, and we default to the one least favourable to the claim.
What this figure does not include
Stated plainly, because an estimate that hides its exclusions is not an estimate:
- Pre-1776 enslavement. Craemer's labor-hours model begins at 1776. More than a century of colonial enslavement precedes it.
- Post-emancipation harms. Black Codes, convict leasing, sharecropping debt peonage, redlining, urban renewal, and discriminatory federal lending are not priced in.
- Destroyed and expropriated property, including massacre losses such as Tulsa in 1921.
- Non-economic harm. No figure here attempts to price killing, family separation, or torture.
Every one of these exclusions pushes the estimate down. The number on the front page is an undercount by construction.
What this figure is not
- Not a court judgment. No court has ordered payment of this or any amount.
- Not a legislative appropriation. H.R. 40, the federal bill to study reparations, has never received a floor vote in either chamber since its first introduction in 1989.
- Not a claim about any individual's entitlement. Eligibility under any actual program would be determined by that program's own rules.
Corrections
If a figure, citation or characterization on this page is wrong, we want to know and we will log the correction publicly. [email protected]
Methodology version 1.0 · anchor date 1 January 2023 · last reviewed 2026-07-21. Changes to the base figure, anchor or rate are versioned here and applied to the counter at the same time.