Black Businesses Are Buckling Under the Threat of COVID-19
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
Published March 24, 2020 by TheRoot
The coronavirus pandemic is having a devastating effect on small businesses across the country, but black-owned businesses are likely to feel it more severely—and for a longer period of time.
“Black people represent about 13 percent of the population But only 4.3 percent of the nation’s 22 million business owners,” Andre Perry, a fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, told The Root. He explained that the types of businesses black people tend to own make them more vulnerable to the pandemic.
“There’s more of us in the face-to-face serving businesses,” said Perry. “So barber shops, beauty salons, restaurants in a local community. And so, you’re seeing the social distancing mechanism really hurt us more than others.”
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