A Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF) study found that the median net worth for Black business owners was 12 times higher than for Black non-business owners. In addition, while whites have 13 times the wealth of Black Americans, when comparing the median wealth of Black and white business owners, the median wealth gap decreases to three…
Axios June 19, 2021 Barriers to Black capitalism When a bank turned down George Johnson for a business loan in the 1950s, he got creative. He returned and told the bank he needed $250 to take his wife on a vacation — and was approved. Then he invested the cash in his business, which became the first Black…
The list of benefits for cooperative ownership can go on and on. So why aren’t there more of them? Why isn’t there a cooperative grocery in every neighborhood? Why are the vast majority of small businesses still only using conventional ownership models? Perhaps one reason is that cooperatives are essentially locked out of the $20-25…
“I think access to capital is really key,” Guzman said. “It’s such a brave act to jump into small business ownership and start something of your own, to create a new technology or a new innovation. Having support ecosystems will help support entrepreneurship and especially capital.” And, she added, “we really need to focus on…
…standard measures suggest that America’s entrepreneurial energy has been declining for decades. In 1984, a high-water mark for Ronald Reagan–era new business formation, 14.6 percent of all establishments were less than one year old. In 2018, by contrast, only 9.2 percent of all establishments were that new. The simplest measure of new-business dynamism is the…
Arizona needs a statewide strategy to address the estimated 83% of small business owners who are now seen as “too risky” for a loan and who are too small to attract venture capital. As a state with only 12 community banks, we need to look at our options to address this critical issue. The lack…
Over the last several years I’ve talked with mayors, economic development professionals, planning directors, and city managers across the country about how to grow a strong local economy and vibrant downtown. Even today, it still surprises me how often I hear people in these positions talk about attracting a major employer or tech companies as…
In 2017, the company (Atlantic Diving Supply) settled for $16 million with DOJ to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that claimed that it really wasn’t a small business and that it actually secretly controlled the network of other 500 employee cap. Turns out the Pentagon back in 2005 initially learned that ADS was secretly controlling one…
Evidence from various economies and samples consistently shows that gender remains a significant predictor – inequitably skewed against women – for access to financial and social capital, and hence positions of power, regardless of the competence and self-efficacy levels of the women entrepreneurs. Forbes May 18, 2021 Five Ways To Be A Successful Female Entrepreneur Benjamin…
“Because of systemic racism, because of our economic policies, we have created a nation where so many of our smaller cities and so many of our urban neighborhoods, particularly where Blacks and Latinos are the majority of the population, have been left behind,” says Preuss, the founder and chief executive officer of consulting firm Recast City in Washington,…