- Mar 11, 2015
- 89,480
- 63,373
- 3,645
So much for whites talking about how they are paying for us. And while we pay more, we don't get the same essential services in return.
Black families pay significantly higher property taxes than white families, new analysis shows
State by state, neighborhood by neighborhood, black families pay 13 percent more in property taxes each year than a white family would in the same situation, a massive new data analysis shows.
Black-owned homes are consistently assessed at higher values, relative to their actual sale price, than white homes, according to a new working paper by economists Troup Howard of the University of Utah and Carlos Avenancio-León of Indiana University.
African Americans have long said they bear a disproportionate burden for taxes that support local police, schools and parks, but nationwide measures of this type of systemic racism are hard to come by.
To expose the structural and historical factors behind these discriminatory property tax assessments, the economists analyzed more than a decade of tax assessment and sales data for 118 million homes throughout the country.
In almost every state, property tax assessments were higher in areas with more black and Hispanic residents. In city after city, the authors show it is not just differences in the buildings or land but also the racial composition of the neighborhood that matters. The gap between white families and minority households remains large — 10 percent — when you combine data for Hispanic and black families. (The authors excluded California because Proposition 13, passed in 1978, drastically changed how property is valued there.)
Black families pay significantly higher property taxes than white families, new analysis shows
State by state, neighborhood by neighborhood, black families pay 13 percent more in property taxes each year than a white family would in the same situation, a massive new data analysis shows.
Black-owned homes are consistently assessed at higher values, relative to their actual sale price, than white homes, according to a new working paper by economists Troup Howard of the University of Utah and Carlos Avenancio-León of Indiana University.
African Americans have long said they bear a disproportionate burden for taxes that support local police, schools and parks, but nationwide measures of this type of systemic racism are hard to come by.
To expose the structural and historical factors behind these discriminatory property tax assessments, the economists analyzed more than a decade of tax assessment and sales data for 118 million homes throughout the country.
In almost every state, property tax assessments were higher in areas with more black and Hispanic residents. In city after city, the authors show it is not just differences in the buildings or land but also the racial composition of the neighborhood that matters. The gap between white families and minority households remains large — 10 percent — when you combine data for Hispanic and black families. (The authors excluded California because Proposition 13, passed in 1978, drastically changed how property is valued there.)