Everything Wrong With Black Owned Businesses & No, It Isn't Lack Of Support

Black entrepreneurs, especially women, have been starting businesses at a higher rate than the rest of the population in recent years. But black-owned businesses seem to be struggling in part because they entered the lockdown in less secure shape than many other companies.

Community leaders from many communities have started tearing down impending policies that affect the progression of black businesses. Instead of getting your services through other big-name brands; people should try spending money on small businesses such as Auntie Vee’s Kitchen. Meanwhile, Black-owned businesses faced other barriers to accessing government funded COVID-19 capital assistance programs. Many are sole proprietors and so didn’t qualify for the federal government’s Personal Paycheck Protection funding program. Others didn’t have the technical expertise to act quickly to access the capital. Those that did qualify again faced the hurdle of not having lending relationships with banks, which has been a big factor in getting the loans. The report cited 2018 data from a small business credit survey conducted by 12 Federal Reserve Banks.

Lawrence Katz, an economist at Harvard, said he was concerned that the pandemic could hollow out lower-income neighborhoods, where job and income loss has been greater. That, in turn, would amplify the already great wealth and income disparities in the United States between rich and poor as well as between white people and people of color. Khristopher J. Brooks is a reporter and video editor for CBS MoneyWatch covering business, consumer and financial stories that range from economic inequality and housing issues to bankruptcies and the business of sports. Brooks has covered business and economic development for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle and the Bristol Herald Courier. He also covered higher education for the Omaha World-Herald, the Florida Times-Union and The Ledger in Lakeland, Florida. "The devastating consequences of these closures will ripple throughout Black communities and last for generations," Color of Change President Rashad Robinson said in a statement. "Our federal government can no longer wait to bring immediate, accessible relief to Black small businesses."

Brookings’s Sifan Liu and Joseph Parilla found that small businesses experienced disproportionate job entertainment loss during the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009. The authors note that smaller firms have more credit constraints and greater sensitivities to consumer fluctuations. Consequently, strategic investments in young firms can help them weather economic storms, improve survival rates, and incite innovation. But nothing grows without investment, which the corporate sector recognizes.

Black-owned businesses are feeling the effects of the COVID-19 recession more dramatically than their white-owned counterparts. The spread of COVID-19, or the novel coronavirus, pandemic has been detrimental to small businesses around the country.

More than fifty years later, the need for incisive analysis and new, progressive policy ideas is clearer than ever. The story of how the struggle for civil rights intertwined and intersected historically with the struggle against monopoly provides a lesson for the future. It suggests that going forward we also should consider how political independence connects with economic independence in the struggle for social justice. Without freedom from domination in one sphere, there is no freedom in the other. Allowing the powerful to corner markets erodes the democratic spirit that makes America great. fter the late 1970s, both Democrats and Republicans generally retreated from the long-standing tradition of using anti-monopoly laws to foster economic and political equality. Since then, successive administrations have evaluated mergers only for their “efficiency,” and by and large have resisted antitrust actions except in the most egregious instances of collusion and price fixing.

Black entrepreneurship is a tool for survival in a world that does not want to see you win. When we choose to win against all odds, young black children grow up seeing successful entrepreneurs and a thriving community. Small businesses and entrepreneurs have been longtime wealth builders for generations. By supporting more Black-owned companies, you can help create more opportunities for meaningful savings, property ownership, credit building, and generational wealth for black communities.