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Counter Punch: Rebuilding Black-Owned Businesses After COVID-19

Counter Punch, April 23, 2021, Rebuilding Black-Owned Businesses After COVID-19

With over half of American adults now at least partially vaccinated, many of us are beginning to imagine a future beyond the pandemic. But for the many small businesses that didn’t survive, there’s no “after.”

Black-owned businesses have been especially hard-hit. That’s because even after three pandemic relief packages, there’s an elephant in the room that every resource, policy, and program is failing to address: the preexisting conditions of Black entrepreneurs.

In a new paper for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, we offer a few ideas.

First, we advocate direct stimulus payments to spur revenue growth for Black businesses, as well as a new system of partners and resources to support Black-owned, Black-led banks and institutions that can deliver capital for these enterprises.

We also support greater transparency in data collection for small business lending. We need to hold financial institutions accountable for historic discrimination in their lending and credit practices.

Finally, we support making unemployment benefits permanently available to self-employed people who lose their income. And we urge a transition to universal health care that will benefit Black Americans, entrepreneurs, and the nation as a whole.

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