5/19/20--Small business owners across the state reacted in a variety of ways to Governor Charlie Baker’s reopening plan announced Monday. Many decried the incremental plan, saying it would put them out of business. All small business owners are no doubt hurting, but owners of color have been hit particularly hard—both by the immediate economic impacts of the pandemic and by receiving disproportionately less aid—according to reports.
In early March, when coronavirus materialized as a real threat to the United States, the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts (BECMA) sent out a survey asking its roughly 300 members how the rumblings of a global pandemic affected their businesses. 90% of respondents reported experiencing “a somewhat to severe financial impact.”
“We can only imagine that that number is at 100% now,” Segun Idowu, executive director of BECMA, told us last week in an interview.
Also in this episode:
From Transactional to Transformative: The Case for Equity in Gateway City Transit-Oriented Development (https://massinc.org/research/equity-report/)
The Cities We Need (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/11/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-us-cities-inequality.html)
