According to a well-known university dean, the difference in life spans between white and black Americans leads to an unequal allocation of social security benefits.
The dean of Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, Thomas LaVeist, indicated that although he didn’t think the program was fundamentally racist, its current structure does not produce equitable results.
Social Security’s Inequitable Outcome
La Veist stated, if you look at the differences in life expectancy, if you have a black worker and a white worker, they begin working at the same day, at the same job, for the same company, and they make the same salary, which might not always be the case, but in this example, they make the same salary. La Veist was speaking at a Washington Post Live event on Thursday.
They both retired on the same day and contributed the exact same amount of money to the Social Security system, he claimed.
According to LaVeist, there will be a difference in how much the white person receives from the system they paid into because they will live longer on average than a black person.
This is just a fantastic example of how that works. I’m not suggesting that Social Security is fundamentally racist, but that it has an unfair result as a result of these health imbalances.
Read more: Social Security: Nearing An Apocalypse
Challenging the Status Quo
Because it doesn’t require someone to hold racist beliefs, attitudes, or ideals, LaVeist claimed that social security was a good illustration of structural disparities. It’s just the way the system works. And if we don’t step in, it’ll keep working this way.
Because an unfair system hurts everyone, the scholar claims that health inequality is not just a concern for people of color.
Everyone contributes to a system, but they do not get a return on their investment. The economy is significantly hampered by it.