The White Bonus | Reviews and Blurbs
What Is A White Bonus? | Data Viz: Tracie | Bonus Estimator
Original Documents | Press kit

Overview

We are in the process of developing an online White Bonus Estimator that will allow visitors with white parents or grandparents to tally their “white bonus.”

The Estimator asks:

What’s your basic demographic profile: Race, age, gender
Where does your family’s money come from? Of the public policies and private practices that offered whites material advantages after 1900, which ones did your parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents use?
Where does your money come from? Of the public policies and private practices that offer whites material advantages today, which ones have likely translated into dollars for you?
Given the significant body of social science tying America’s lack of social provision to the racism of white Americans—notably, white Americans’ lack of support for policies granting education and health care to all, rather than requiring that people prove they ‘deserve’ it—what can we reasonably say racism cost you?

Then, the Estimator measures:

If racist public policies helped your parents and grandparents offer you material support after leaving home, what is the cash value of that help?
If racist public policies helped you accumulate money after leaving home, what is the cash value of that help?
How much you have you spent on services that, if we had a functional safety net, would have been affordable or free?

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Questions To Measure Your White Bonus

While we work on developing a functional online White Bonus Estimator, we’re sharing our template of initial questions below. If you’ve got any thoughts on these, please feel free to contact us!

Demographic Questions (2)

What year were you born?
How many of your grandparents were white? For purposes of this calculator, consider only those grandparents who had a financial relationship to your parents or to you.

Family Bonus: Amount of Class Privilege (15)

Did you attend private school for any year from kindergarten through high school?
Did your family pay for any standardized admissions test prep classes or tutoring?
Did your family pay for you to take standardized admissions tests (such as SAT, ACT, MCAT, LSAT, GRE, etc.) multiple times?
Did your family help pay for schools or training programs after high school?
Did your family help pay off any of your debt, including student loans, since you turned 18?
Did you live for free with your family or family friends for more than one month?
Did your family help pay your rent for more than one month?
Did your family sign as a guarantor for an apartment?
Did your family help with a down payment for a home?
Did you receive any cash gifts or inheritances from family members or family friends?
Did you inherit a home from your family?
Do you have a trust fund?
Did your family help pay for any notable one-time life expenses/events post-high school graduation, such as a wedding, major medical procedures (including fertility treatments), vacations longer than one week, a honeymoon, graduate education, investment in your business, attorney services, cash bail or fines, car purchase or down payment, computer, cell phone?
Did your family pay for recurring items such as a car or health insurance; cell phone bill; family plans for services such as cell phone or streaming entertainment?
Did you ever borrow money from family members that wasn’t expected to be paid back, or paid back without interest?

Family Bonus: Source of Class Privilege (7)

Did your parents, grandparents or great-grandparents attend college before 1975?
Did your family own their homes?
Did any parent, grandparent serve in any of the armed forces before 1964?
Was any parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent a member of a union prior to 1970?
Did any parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent hold a job in any fields that were and are disproportionately white?
Did any parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent inherit money, land, businesses, or other assets over $3,000 (in 2023 dollars)?
Did any parents have to support their own parents or other family, either by spending money or providing in-kind care?

Social Bonus: Your mobility (11)

Did you receive scholarship money based, at least in part, on standardized test scores?
Have you rented an apartment that you found through a social connection?
Have you rented an apartment in a gentrifying neighborhood, i.e. a low-income neighborhood recently attractive to developers?
Did you write a “love letter” to a home seller as part of a successful purchase of a home?
Did you find a home or other property you bought through a personal connection with a white person?
If you own a home, are your property taxes limited by law/regulation after initial purchase like Proposition 13 in California?
Were you only able to afford to buy a home in a depressed real estate market that is majority POC?
What are your approximate wages? (Either annually or hourly)
Have you been hired for a job in part because of a shared interest, school, or social overlap?
Have you ever been let off with a warning, placed on diversion, or otherwise avoided a conviction after encounters with police or the criminal justice system?
Have you ever benefited from having a credit score over 650?

Cost of Racism: Your Mobility (9)

Have/would you considered paying for private education for your children, kindergarten through high school?
Have/would you considered paying for college or university for your child(ren)?
Have you worked in service sector jobs that you felt did not pay fairly?
Have you worked in agricultural jobs that you felt did not pay fairly?
Have you reduced/stopped working to provide care for others in your family: children, spouses, siblings, parents?
Have you had to, or do you expect to financially support your parents?
Have you ever applied or considered applying for public benefits such as food stamps, CHIP, SSDI, cash welfare, or Medicaid?
Have you had to pay for health insurance or health care?
Have you ever had to pay off medical debt?