A Sacramento County Welfare Program Available Only for Some Racial Groups

In ten days, the Sacramento County Department of Child, Family and Adult Services will close its application window for a welfare program called “Family First Economic Support Pilot (FFESP).” This guaranteed income pilot aims to provide low-income parents or legal guardians with children age 5 or younger, who live in six Sacramento zip codes, a monthly stipend of $725 for a year. 

With inflation and exorbitant costs of child care, low-income parents of young children, regardless of race or ethnicity, need a break. Unfortunately, the FFESP racializes the nature of guaranteed income and turns public assistance into a pork barrel project. For parents in Sacramento to qualify for the stipend, they must show proof that they earn less than 200% of the federal poverty level and that they are caring for a child who is “Black, American Indian, or Alaska Native.” How blatantly unconstitutional! 

Pegging government assistance to a selective curation of racial groups begs the big thorny question: Does poverty discriminate on the basis of race? 

In 2022, the distribution of people living in poverty in the U.S. was such to include 9.5% of White Americans, 21.4% of Black, 16.7% of Hispanic, 10% of Asian/Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and 24.5% of American Alaska. In California, the comparative rates were 9.1% of White Americans, 18.7% of Black, 14.8% of Hispanic, 9.5% of Asian/Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and 17.1% of American Alaska. A cursory look at the proportionality numbers may lead one to infer that poverty in America correlates with race. 

But the race-poverty correlation would only be true, ceteris paribus (All else being equal). The world is neither even nor random and certainly not all else being equal. To start, important demographic differences render the simple-headed comparison on race proportionality futile. Census Bureau data tells us that White Americans are on average older than racial and ethnic minorities, with the most common age being 58 vis-à-vis 11 for Hispanics, 27 for blacks and 29 for Asians. Age is a significantly more consequential factor in predicting income than race, because older individuals have had more time to work, save and accumulate wealth or assets. 

Family size is another overlooked determinant that alone interferes with the race/ethnicity factor. For example, among mothers ages 40 to 44 with more than two children, 34% are White, 40% Black, 51% Hispanic and 28% Asian. Different family sizes add to statistical differences on poverty. 

More importantly, culture matters. While adherents to cultural relativism want us to accept all cultures as equally valid and it is just a matter of perceptions, the reality stands that cultures around the world and within a country vary greatly in terms of values, norms and practices. Culture to a large extent explains why Indian Americans were the highest-earning ethnic group, followed by Filipino Americans, Taiwanese Americans and Sri Lankan Americans. To disregard cultural differences in favor of crude racial/ethnic abstractions in devising social welfare policies is tantamount to waging an ideological war on realities.  

Last but not least, statistical inferences on race proportionality, presumably the rationale behind Sacramento’s FFESP program, grossly distort the full picture of poverty. In absolute numbers, there were 1,172,300 Whites, 360,800 Blacks, 2,281,200 Hispanics, 568,600 Asians and 16,000 American Indians or Alaska Natives living below the poverty line. Handing out government cash assistance to only Blacks, American Indians and Alaska Natives translates into missed opportunities for other groups that are considerably larger in numbers. It is simply unfair.

In November 1996, California made history by approving Proposition 209, a citizen-initiated ballot initiative to prohibit government preferences. The passage of Prop. 209 by over 55% of the electorate made the Golden State the first in the nation to ban discrimination and preferences on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in public policies. In 2020, over 57% of a larger and more progressive electorate in the state voted to keep Prop. 209 in place by saying no to Prop. 16, a blanket repeal of the state’s constitutional guarantee of equal treatment. This year, ACA 7, another effort to circumvent Prop. 209 by way of “research-based/informed” exceptions, went down in flames as state senators were forced to contend with the sheer unpopularity of government preferences in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling against race-based affirmative action and their recent failure to pass Prop. 16. 

Are Sacramento’s government bureaucrats so oblivious to the state constitution and a growing public consensus against racial preferences that they are willing to roll out a facially unconstitutional program? 

If you know of a parent living in one of these zip codes in Sacramento (95815, 95821, 95823, 95825, 95828, 95838) who may miss out on the Family First Economic Support Pilot solely on the basis of race or ethnicity, would you let me know? Write me at wenyuan.wu@cferfoundation.org.