Planning for a Post-Coronavirus Economy Must Focus on Racial Inequities

From the Boston Globe. The inequities of those most impacted by COVID-19, Black- and brown- majority communities, show that we are not, in fact, in this together. People of color, particularly from Black- and brown-majority communities, have accounted for significantly higher COVID-19 related deaths; the survival rates of their businesses are positioned to follow a similar trajectory. Before the World Health Organization deemed the coronavirus a pandemic, Black businesses were already reeling. Black entrepreneurs are denied bank loans more than twice as often than their white peers — 53 percent to 25 percent. And people of color pay higher interest rates on average than their white peers — 7.8 percent to 6.4 percent. In addition, Black firms’ vulnerability is made evident by who was able to weather the 2008 Recession. About half of Black businesses survived, compared to 60 percent of white-owned firms, according to US Census research.