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Developing Solutions to Minority Financing Challenges

Starting a new firm or growing an established business requires capital, but Black and Hispanic businesses are reported to have higher barriers to capital access. The challenges are well documented and many solutions have been proposed, but to achieve change, we need to move ideas into action. The federal government actually has a lot of programs that can help. Between the Small Business Administration’s (SBA’s) Community Advantage Loan Program, Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund), Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), and the Department of Agriculture’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization(OSDBU), there is potential to mobilize resources that drive job creation and economic growth, especially in minority communities throughout the country. We need to leverage these resources, as well as develop and execute new solutions.

Small Business Owners Struggle For Credit

The California Reinvestment Coalition released Small Business Owners Struggle to Access Affordable Credit, a new report focused on the challenges small business owners and entrepreneurs face when trying to get a loan to start, maintain, or grow their businesses.

The Racial Wealth Divide

Prosperity Now and the Institute for Policy Studies look at the racial wealth divide at the median over the next four and eight years in The Road to Zero Wealth. They find that if you examine median wealth trends over the past three decades, the racial wealth divide will only continue to grow—into perpetuity—and it will do so at an accelerated rate.

Equity Profile of Los Angeles

Equity Profiles project by PolicyLink recently produced a report for San Francisco, the Bay Area and Los Angeles County. Each profile presents demographic trends and assess how well regions are doing to ensure its diverse residents can participate in the region’s economic vitality, contribute to the readiness of the workforce, and connect to the region’s assets and opportunities.

Equity in the Nine-County San Francisco Bay Area

Equity Profiles project by PolicyLink recently produced a report for San Francisco, the Bay Area and Los Angeles County. Each profile presents demographic trends and assess how well regions are doing to ensure its diverse residents can participate in the region’s economic vitality, contribute to the readiness of the workforce, and connect to the region’s assets and opportunities.

Equity in the Five-County San Francisco Bay Area

Equity Profiles project by PolicyLink recently produced a report for San Francisco, the Bay Area and Los Angeles County. Each profile presents demographic trends and assess how well regions are doing to ensure its diverse residents can participate in the region’s economic vitality, contribute to the readiness of the workforce, and connect to the region’s assets and opportunities.

Prosperity Now Scorecard – California

Prosperity Now (formerly known as CFED) released its 2017 Scorecard, which finds that even as many major economic indices suggest that the U.S. economy is gaining momentum, only a lucky few are actually enjoying the opportunity to get by and get ahead. The Scorecard measures how states’ residents are faring economically and what the states do to put them on stronger financial footing. This year’s Scorecard assesses the states on 113 measures in five issue areas: Financial Assets & Income, Businesses & Jobs, Home ownership & Housing, Health Care and Education.

The Tax Code & Women Business Owners

This report, in keeping with the mission of the Kogod Tax Policy Center (KTPC) to conduct non-partisan policy research on tax and compliance issues specific to small businesses and entrepreneurs, provides an initial assessment of how the Code’s tax expenditures targeted to help small businesses grow and access capital impact women-owned firms. The results are eye-opening.

Entrepreneurship among Women in STEM

Commissioned by the National Women’s Business Council and prepared by BD2, LLC and RTI International, On the Commercialization Path: Entrepreneurship and Intellectual Property Outputs among Women in Stem presents an examination of innovation among women in STEM fields by identifying gaps in their entrepreneurial outcomes and highlighting future opportunities for policy improvements.

Social Entrepreneurship Amongst Women and Men

Commissioned by the National Women’s Business Council and prepared by Siri Terjesen, PhD, Social Entrepreneurship Amongst Women and Men in the United States uses brand new data on social entrepreneurship among men and women in the United States to confirm the message that women are successfully launching, leading, and growing social ventures across the country. In particular, this project gives an exciting “first look” at data from the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, and reveals some pretty interesting trends about social enterprises. Learn what percentage of U.S. entrepreneurs report leading a social enterprise, how entrepreneurial motivations differ between men and women, and recommendations for why and how policymakers should support social enterprises.