Detroit Free Press, June 19, 2020: COVID-19 widens racial wealth gap, hitting Black businesses especially hard
For Black-owned businesses, the hurdles are even higher as the economy reopens, especially given the racial wealth gap, the higher unemployment rate during the crisis among African Americans and the lack of access that many minority businesses have to traditional loans, even including the new Payment Protection Program.
Already some small businesses lost the battle. About 3.3 million small businesses shut their doors, or 22%, from February until April, according to a report by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
Many will attempt to come back, but we won’t know for months how many will survive, according to researchers.
African American businesses were hit especially hard with 41% shutting down. Latinx businesses followed with 32% closed and Asian businesses fell by 26%.
Female-owned businesses also were disproportionately hit at 25%. Such findings of early-stage losses to small businesses may lead to even greater economic inequality.
