Thread by @oscarthinks

This week for @NextCityOrg, I wrote about a new initiative focusing on (but not exclusive to) entrepreneurs of color who are looking to grow manufacturing businesses.

nextcity.org/daily/entry/th…

I took the opportunity to start the story in Detroit, both a historic center of manufacturing as well as the gasp-inducing disparity in businesses owned by people of color, particularly black people, and white-owned businesses.

In Detroit, average revenue for a white-owned business is $1.36 million a year...while average revenue for a black-owned business is just $32,525 a years.

Let that sink in.

Here are the charts from the U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of Business Owners.

factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0…

Regrettably, those numbers are a bit dated, but they're the latest available. The Census Bureau only conducts the Survey of Business Owners every 5 yrs, and the more recent 2017 survey data still isn't out. The bureau is chronically under-funded & understaffed.

How on earth can there be such a disparity? Many, many reasons of course, but it starts with...

“Generational wealth gaps,” as @StartWithBuild's Jacquise Purifoy points out.

Nationally, white median net worth is 10x black median net worth.

federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/…

10x median net worth means 10x more startup capital from white household friends and family, a cushion one can draw upon as a business scales up. For manufacturers jumping from selling at craft fairs to filling out larger wholesale orders, that extra cushion matters a great deal.

Why manufacturing? Well it's not the only sector where @StartWithBuild is supporting entrepreneurs of color or women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, but it's the focus of @UrbanMfg, whom Build & others like @WWBIC sought out because they see client demand in mfg.

Despite the odds and despite other challenges like zoning and land use that they face in cities... nextcity.org/daily/entry/no…

...manufacturers remain optimistic about future growth, @UrbanMfg found in a 2017 study. urbanmfg.org/project/state-…

Now, there isn't a lot of evidence that supporting entrepreneurs of color to grow their businesses will close the racial wealth gap. But there is evidence (not cited in this piece but look out for it in future pieces) that growing a business can be a pathway to wealth for POC...

Some are working to close the racial wealth gap. Some are working to grow POC-owned businesses. There is some overlap between those two groups, but those are two different goals and sometimes I get a worrying impression that one gets conflated with the other.

This right here is about growing POC-owned manufacturing businesses, in spite of the racial wealth gap. To borrow a metaphor from @DarrickHamilton, this is about equipping POC with better umbrellas to weather the storm of racial wealth inequality. nextcity.org/daily/entry/th…

But, alas, what to do about the storm...