I took my first economics course around 1963. Since then, our country has endured at least 5 major economic crises. Each of these crises was very different but they all shared at least once significant characteristic:
They all hit Latino-Americans disproportionately hard.
They all hit Latino-Americans disproportionately hard.
In fact, if you take the Hispanic unemployment rate over the past 50 years and match it with the national rate, you’ll see that the lines roughly move in tandem.
Except the Hispanic unemployment rate is always above the national average.
Except the Hispanic unemployment rate is always above the national average.
Economic crises do this: They take preexisting inequalities and make them more unequal.
And unfortunately, if someone tried to design an economic crises that would unduly target the Hispanic community, they’d probably come up with something that looks a lot like COVID-19.
And unfortunately, if someone tried to design an economic crises that would unduly target the Hispanic community, they’d probably come up with something that looks a lot like COVID-19.
The 5 sectors the pandemic was most likely to slow or shut down accounted for 50% of revenues for Latino-owned businesses. They accounted for 65% of all Latino employment.
1-in-5 Latino households still say they don’t have enough food to eat.
1-in-5 Latino households still say they don’t have enough food to eat.
The President and I have been insistent that we deliver more relief to business owners & families so we can avoid long-term economic scarring.
And now we are.
The ARP has many programs to address specific economic needs. And just today the PPP loan program was extended.
And now we are.
The ARP has many programs to address specific economic needs. And just today the PPP loan program was extended.
PPP was supposed to be an early lifeline, but because of issues with the program design, the 1st rounds often didn’t reach the smallest businesses, which are disproportionately Hispanic-owned. We’re addressing that now with implementation changes & the application extension.
If history is any guide, Hispanic-owned businesses will drive a large portion of the recovery. From 2007-12, the number of Latino-owned businesses grew by 3.3%.
It doesn’t sound like much until you see that Non-Latino owned businesses declined by 3.6% during the same period.
It doesn’t sound like much until you see that Non-Latino owned businesses declined by 3.6% during the same period.
I’m confident Hispanic entrepreneurs can lead us out of crisis again. Hispanic workers can power our recovery— potentially in an even bigger way than a decade ago— so long as we remove some of the longstanding barriers that have been in the way of prosperity.
I had the great opportunity to speak about some of these issues with the @USHCC today at their Virtual Legislative Summit.
Read my full remarks here:
home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel…
or
secjanetyellen.medium.com
Read my full remarks here:
home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel…
or
secjanetyellen.medium.com
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