Bernice Ledbetter Writes Opinion on How Minority and Women Owned Businesses Can Drive the COVID-19 Comeback for Small Biz Daily

According to a 2019 American Express report, women-owned businesses represented 42% of all businesses and employed 9.4 million workers. In the past decade, minority businesses have also made significant strides with minority-owned businesses accounting for more than one million new businesses started in the United States. However, the global pandemic crisis now threatens to wipe out nearly all this growth that took years to build. Research from the Brookings Institute found that “the COVID-19 recession has the potential to be disproportionately devastating minority and women owned businesses. Whereas the Great Recession hit manufacturing and construction hard, COVID-19 is putting the food services, retail, and accommodation industries at immediate risk.”

Bernice Ledbetter, Director of the Center for Women in Leadership and Dean of Students and Alumni Affairs, shares with Small Biz Daily readers how minority and women owned businesses (MWBE) can survive, thrive, and drive the post-COVID economy. Three ways MWBE can be supported and begin to recover is by providing access to SBA loans to ensure equity in lending; re-invest their business and seek customer opportunities; and to foster public-private partnerships. Small businesses are the backbone to our economy and we all must collectively support and ensure that MWBEs have the tools they need to stay afloat and thrive in the years to come. Read more.