San Francisco Entrepreneurs of Color Fund: Creating a Continuum of Capital and Consulting The Aspen Institute First published October 2020 Structural inequities—both historical and current—have created barriers for entrepreneurs of color to build wealth and grow their businesses. The San Francisco Entrepreneurs of Color Fund (SFEOCF) seeks to address these inequities by creating a more
Resource Category: Microbusiness
Micro Businesses Create Meaningful Jobs
The Inland Empire Women’s Business Center and the Coachella Valley Women’s Center conducted a study of their clients to learn more about what helps business owners become employers, creating new jobs for the region. The study also examined the types of jobs provided by micro-businesses and the wages and benefits offered. They discovered that micro-business jobs are often close to home, are flexible to accommodate caregiving and educational pursuits and are a career path.
2019 Small Business Lending in the US
This report uses the latest publicly available lending data from banks to examine changes in small business credit for June 2017 through June 2019. The data used was collected prior to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and provides a precrisis benchmark on the state of small business lending.
Black Business Owners Hit Hard by Pandemic
Black owners show biggest decline in business activity. Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on business owners have varied across demographic groups. Data on demographic characteristics and self-employment are collected through the Current Population Survey and available through IPUMS. In July 2020, the total number of people who were self-employed and working was 7.3 percent lower than in July 2019. That decline was a partial recovery from April 2020, when the decline was 20.2 percent relative to April 2019. Declines have been largest for Black self-employed workers, with a decline of 37.6 percent in April and a partial recovery to a decline of 18.4 percent in July. The effects of the pandemic have varied by industry, and demographic differences in the effects of the pandemic reflect demographic differences in distributions across industries.
COVID’s Effect on Female-Owned Small Businesses
Women-owned small businesses have been more heavily impacted by the coronavirus pandemic than male-owned small businesses, and they are less likely to anticipate a strong recovery in the year ahead, new data show. The Special Report on Women-Owned Small Businesses During COVID-19 from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also found that women-owned small businesses have less optimistic revenue, investment and hiring plans compared to male-owned small businesses.
2020 Small Biz Profiles for CA Congressional Districts
Each profile focuses on the impact of small businesses in 436 congressional districts. Within, readers can find the congressional district’s total number of small employers and their industry breakout, plus the number of workers employed and payroll expended by small businesses. Additionally, the profiles provide a map showing the total number and distribution of self-employed workers across the district.
COVID-19’s Effects in Black Communities
The effects of the pandemic on small businesses amid forced closings, modified re-openings, and weakened demand, are well documented. Black businesses experienced the most acute decline, with a 41 percent drop. This brief examines the reasons why Black firms have been almost twice as likely to shutter as small firms overall.
Lending Discrimination within PPP
Since March 2020, businesses in the U.S. have been struggling to continue operations in the face of a global pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a recession because of the widespread closures of non-essential businesses enacted to reduce the spread of the virus. Even as things begin to reopen, people are less likely to go out due to possible health risks. In response, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act which created the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The PPP is a lending program that provides money, in a potential grant format, to small businesses to help them weather the economic effects of the pandemic. The majority of the loan needs to be allocated for employee salaries and then the remainder can be used for other business expenses like rent and loan payments. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the disparities in small business lending we have detected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic continued with implementation of the PPP program.
Impact of PPP on Small Businesses
To determine the initial effectiveness of government relief efforts, Gusto analyzed data from nearly 27,000 of our small business customers who reported receiving PPP loans and compared it to platform data from our 100,000-plus small business customers nationwide[1]. The report below shows that PPP aid has helped to provide stabilization from the initial free fall in March ‘20, with strong increases in hiring and rehiring beginning in the second half of April ‘20.
Minority-Owned Businesses Hit Hardest by Pandemic
This fact sheet shows that across the United States, businesses owned by Black, Latinx, and Asian people have closed down at an alarming rate during the COVID-19 pandemic. Between February and April of 2020 alone, more than 3 million small businesses closed down across the country. Businesses owned by people of color, women, and immigrants have been most severely harmed, closing down faster than the national average