Advancing Black entrepreneurship amid a racial reckoning and a pandemic

Advancing Black entrepreneurship amid a racial reckoning and a pandemic.

Only 4% of Black-owned businesses in the U.S. survive past the startup stage, even though 20% of Black Americans start businesses, according to a 2020 report by McKinsey and Company, a management consulting company. As the pandemic forced many businesses to close their doors, about 58% of Black-owned businesses in the U.S. were at risk of financial distress before the pandemic, compared with about 27% of white-owned businesses, with possibly up to 41% of Black-owned businesses closing between February and April 2020, according to the McKinsey report. In another recent study by advocacy groups, Color of Change and The Main Street Alliance, 40% of Black businesses said they could only last another six months, compared with 55% of their white business owner counterparts. Amid a pandemic and a national racial reckoning in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd, there is a lot of focus on Black economic empowerment and building generation wealth, particularly through launching Black-owned business, some of these advocate groups have said.