Congress pressed to rescue struggling Black-owned businesses

Politico

By Zachary Warmbrodt and Megan Cassella

July 7, 2020

“You hear the stories, but to live it, to be that ‘African American disadvantaged minority business owner’ — imagine being that disadvantaged owner with a criminal record, during a time when unemployment is going sky high not just for African Americans but for everyone,” Wilks said in an interview.

Economists have criticized the time it took to make the funds more widely available, saying some minority-owned businesses could not survive long enough even to apply for the second round of aid.

“Just the weeks that went by between those time periods could be the difference between the life and death of a business,” said Henry McKoy, director of entrepreneurship at North Carolina Central University’s business school.

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