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U. S. Census Black Business Stats Show Critical Need for Progress

Blackonomics

U. S. Census Black Business Stats Show Critical Need for Progress
By James Clingman

NEWS ANALYSIS

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(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Taken every five years and published in phases over a period of two or three years, the Economic Census relative to Black-owned business ownership has finally been released. It contains information captured in 2012 on Black businesses and those owned by others; it also contains information on revenues and employees within those businesses.

At first take, the numbers are astounding, but a closer analytical review of the stats may cause the reader to question our economic status in this country and the progress we must make in order to reach parity and claim a proportionate share of business in America. This article celebrates the progress we have made by starting new businesses, but it will also dissect some of those data and offer a few solutions to the problems they present.

A comparison of the 2007 vs. the 2012 Black business stats shows an increase in firms from just over 1.9 million to 2.6 million; annual revenues for Black firms went from $135.7 billion to $187.6 billion; Black firms with paid employees went from 106,566 to 110,786; the number of employees within Black firms increased from 909,552 to 1,045,120; and the number of Black firms without employees (sole proprietorships) went from 1,815,298 to 2,482,382.

If you get nothing else from this article please let the previous paragraph sink into your brain. Analyze the numbers and draw your own conclusions about our economic status in this nation. The simple comparison between 2007 and 2012, if looked at critically, should lead the reader to ask, for instance, “How is it that with a $1.2 trillion aggregate income among Blacks, our businesses have only $187.6 billion in annual receipts?” Another reasonable question to ask is, “Why such a dearth of Black businesses that have employees and such and a preponderance of one-person businesses?”

While I don’t want your eyes to glaze over from all the stats, let me point out just one more set. There are 1.9 million Asian firms in the U.S. with annual receipts of $793.5 billion. Indian-Asian firms, specifically, number 382,521 yet command annual receipts of $251 billion. Hispanics have 3,320,563 firms that earn more than $517 billion annually. Crunch the population numbers and see what you find.

That’s it; no more stats. You can look at the entire census report for yourself and see the numbers for all groups across all categories. The larger message in this latest information is not only the celebratory aspect of entrepreneurship and business start-ups among Black people, but also the fact that we do not support our businesses to the degree we should—and can, with $1.2 trillion in our pockets—and we are not growing our businesses to the point of being able to hire others.

Please let this economic information marinate in your mind for a while. It is vital to our economic growth and our collective economic empowerment. We can use these latest data to boost ourselves beyond mere discussions that always include terms like “Black buying power.” Until we harness that so-called “power” and leverage it to our own benefit, it will continue to be power only for those with whom we spend it. And right now, we are not spending very much of it with Black-owned businesses.

Caveat: Don’t get so hung-up on comparing Black stats to those of other groups except as a measurement of proportionality. Those groups arrived at where they are via other routes and means. They did not suffer the mistreatment that Blacks endured under enslavement, Jim Crow, Black Codes, general market and ownership restrictions, lack of access to credit markets and business subsidies, and the list goes on. My only reason for including those few in this article is to point out the fact that they are taking care of their own by not only starting businesses but by growing them and hiring their own people.

Our charge must be to do much better than we are doing right now. We must stop relying on politics and politicians to pull us out of the ditch that many of them dug for us and threw us into. Our charge is to be much better stewards of our $1.2 trillion by cutting way back on what we buy and from whom we buy it. Our charge is to build more businesses to scale and begin hiring hundreds of thousands of Black people, as economist Thomas Boston has called for, as well as many others. A great website to keep up with these data is Brother Akiim DeShay’s Black Demographics.com.

The numbers are out, y’all. Don’t sleep on them; act upon them. They ain’t lying.

President Obama to Observe Katrina’s 10th Anniversary in New Orleans by Zenitha Prince

Aug. 24, 2015

August 24, 2015

President Obama to Observe Katrina’s 10th Anniversary in New Orleans
By Zenitha Prince

presidentobama-getty

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Almost 10 years ago, the world watched as the waters of the Gulf of Mexico—urged on by the pummeling winds of Hurricane Katrina—swallowed the city of New Orleans, and wreaked havoc all up and down the coast.

On Aug. 27, President Obama will travel to the Crescent City to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of this costliest and one of the deadliest natural disasters to hit the United States and to highlight the city’s efforts to rebuild.

The president will be joined by Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate in meeting with Mayor Mitch Landrieu and residents of affected neighborhoods. Fugate and other FEMA officials will also attend commemoration events in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas in the days leading up to the anniversary.

Officials from several other agencies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Department of Education, the Small Business Administration and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) will also tour the region as part of the observance.

Hurricane Katrina crashed into the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005. The punishing winds destroyed trees, buildings and other property, but most of the damage—especially in New Orleans, where its levees failed—came from the resulting floods. The disaster caused more than $100 billion in damage and took about 2,000 lives.

“We all remember it keenly: water pouring through broken levees; mothers holding their children above the waterline; people stranded on rooftops begging for help; bodies lying in the streets of a great American city,” Obama recalled during a speech on the storm’s fifth anniversary in 2010. He added, “It was a natural disaster but also a manmade catastrophe – a shameful breakdown in government that left countless men, and women, and children abandoned and alone.”

This year, the president is expected to discuss his administration’s as well as state and local efforts to rebuild in the region. And, according to Time magazine, he may likely also note potential links between super storms like Katrina and climate change—a key focus area of the Obama White House.

- See more at: http://afro.com/president-obama-to-observe-katrinas-10th-anniversary-in-new-orleans/?utm_source=Saturday+News+Wrap-up+E-Blast%2C+August+22%2C+2015&utm_campaign=sat+eblast&utm_medium=email#sthash.B7Ej9Inu.dpuf

Where Cotton was King, Racism is Still King by Susan Hagen

August 17, 2015

Where Cotton was King, Racism is Still King
By Susan Hagen

Map of states where cotton was king

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - White Southerners who live today in former slavery strongholds, a region known as the Cotton Belt, are more likely to express negative attitudes toward blacks than their fellow Southerners.

The findings are based on county-by-county analysis of census data and opinion polls of more than 39,000 southern whites.

Residents of these areas where slavery and the plantation economy dominated are also more likely to identify as Republican and to express opposition to race-related policies such as affirmative action.

“The legacy of the plantation economy and its reliance on the forced labor of African Americans continues to exacerbate racial bias in the Deep South.”

Conducted by Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen from the University of Rochester, the research is believed to be the first to demonstrate quantitatively the lasting effects of slavery on contemporary political attitudes in the American South. The findings hold even when other dynamics often associated with racial animosity are factored in, such as present day concentrations of African Americans in an area, or whether an area is urban or rural.

“Slavery does not explain all forms of current day racism,” says Acharya. “But the data clearly demonstrates that the legacy of the plantation economy and its reliance on the forced labor of African Americans continues to exacerbate racial bias in the Deep South.”

The findings are reported in a working paper that will be presented for the first time at the Politics of Race, Immigration, and Ethnicity Consortium at the University of California at Riverside on Sept. 27.

‘The South is not monolithic’

The study looked at data from 93 percent of the 1,344 Southern counties in the Cotton Belt—the crescent-shaped band where plantations flourished from the late 18th century into the 20th century.

The researchers found that a 20 percent increase in the percentage of slaves in a county’s pre-Civil War population is associated with a 3 percent decrease in whites who identify as Democrats today and a 2.4 percent decrease in the number of whites who support affirmative action.

The “slavery effect” accounts for an up to 15 percentage point difference in party affiliation today; about 30 percent of whites in former slave plantation regions report being Democrats, compared to 40 to 45 percent white Democrats in counties that had less than 3 percent slaves, according to the authors.

Despite the region’s similarity in culture and its shared history of legalized slavery and Jim Crow laws, “the South is not monolithic,” says Blackwell.

Politics: North and South

Their analysis shows that without slavery, the South today might look fairly similar politically to the North. The authors compared counties in the South in which slaves were rare—less than 3 percent of the population—with counties in the North that were matched by geography, farm value per capita, and total county population. The result?

There is little difference in political views today among residents in the two regions.

“In political circles, the South’s political conservatism is often credited to ‘Southern exceptionalism,’” says Blackwell. “But the data shows that such modern-day political differences primarily rise from the historical presence of many slaves.”

But how is it possible that an institution so long outlawed continues to influence views in the 21st century? The authors point to both economic and cultural explanations. Although slavery was banned, the economic incentives to exploit former slaves persisted well into the 20th century.

“Before mechanization, cotton was not really economically viable without massive amounts of cheap labor,” explains Sen.

Lynching rates

After the Civil War, southern landowners resorted to racial violence and Jim Crow laws to coerce black field hands, depress wages, and tie tenant farmer to plantations.

“Whereas slavery only required a majority of (powerful) whites in the state to support it, widespread repression and political violence required the support and involvement of entire communities,” the authors write.

Again comparing the county-by-county data, the researchers found evidence of the relationship between racial violence and economics in the historical record of lynchings. Between 1882 and 1930, lynching rates were not uniform across the South, but instead were highest where cotton was king; a 10 percent increase in a county’s slave population in 1860 was associated with a rise of 1.86 lynchings per 100,000 blacks.

“For the average Southern county, this would represent a 20 percent increase in the rate of lynchings during this time period,” says Blackwell.

By the time economic incentives to coerce black labor subsided with the introduction of machinery to harvest cotton in the 1930s, anti-black sentiment was culturally entrenched among local whites, the authors write.

Passed down through the generations

Those views have simply been passed down, argue the authors, citing extensive research showing that children often inherit the political attitudes of their parents and peers.

The data, says Sen, points to the importance of institutional and historical legacy when understanding political views. Most quantitative studies of voters rely on contemporary influences, such as education, income, or the degree of urbanity. The findings are also in line with research on the lingering economic effects of slavery.

Studies have shown that former slave populations in Africa, South and Central America, and the United States continue to experience disparity in income, school enrollment, and vaccinations.

For the study, the authors drew on publically available data, including the 1860 census and the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, a large representative survey of American adults. No external funding was required for the analysis.

U.S. Black Chamber Pressing Auto Dealers for Fair Return on Black Dollars by Hazel Trice Edney

August 24, 2015

U.S. Black Chamber Pressing Auto Dealers for

Fair Return on Black Dollars

African-Americans Projected to Spend $24 Billion on Automobile Industry This Year

By Hazel Trice Edney

U. S. Black Chamber President/CEO Ron Busby signs Memorandum of Understanding with NAMAD President Damon Lester. Marc Bland, IHS vice president of diversity and inclusion, looks on.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - This year alone, African-Americans are projected to spend as much as $24 billion on new cars and other vehicles from America's auto industry. Yet, research shows that, commensurate with their spending, Black consumers have little to show for their support of car dealerships, except the shiny new purchases in their driveways.

That's the reason that a new agreement between the U.S. Black Chambers, Inc. and the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers was established to start solving that problem. The purpose of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), signed late last month, is to forge relationships with Black vendors and suppliers with hopes to "open millions of dollars of opportunity to Black businesses across the nation," says Ron Busby, president/CEO of the USBC.

"The end goal of these agreements is to leverage USBC's professional relationships to provide more tangible contracting opportunities for our small business members and to facilitate collaboration in the Black community."

The announcement of the MOU took place at a press conference sponsored by Hyundai North America during the USBC's recent 2015 School of Chamber and Business Management, an annual gathering with a goal of fostering growth of small Black businesses and economic development across the country. In a recent interview, Busby explains what the new Memorandum means to Black auto dealers and the Black community as a whole.

"The amount that African-Americans spend on vehicles is inappropriately unequal as it relates back to the number of dealerships that we own as well as the amount of money that those particular brands market to the African-American consumer," he says. "And so what we hope that this does - this new relationship that we've established - is we want to showcase the power of the African-American dollar and recirculate that dollar so that our Black dealers can now increase the number of employees that they have working on their staffs."

Busby points out that "The number of dealers that are owned by African-Americans is decreasing at a high rate. We have fewer dealers that are owned by Black folk now than we've ever had in history. But, yet we have more Black consumers who are buying vehicles than we ever had. We just got to support them like we have to support our Black banks as well as our Black media."

NAMAD President Damon Lester says there's been a drastic decrease in Black-owned dealerships. There were only 252 at the end of 2014. That's down from a peak ownership of 795 in 2005, Lester said. That's a 31 percent reduction in ownership in less than 10 years.

The USBC has researched several national industries to find ways to recirculate dollars back into Black businesses and the community at large. Last year the organization focused on travel and tourism "and we said we were going to spend more money with Black hotel owners," Busby recalls. The year before that, it was Black-owned banks.

But, the automobile industry is a special challenge given the comeback of the industry, which nearly collapsed seven years ago. A multi-billion dollar government bailout largely saved the industry, but Black-owned dealerships have continued to struggle having lost thousands of employees.

Marc Bland, vice president for diversity and inclusion for IHS Automotive, which provides statistics and information on the automobile industry among others, says the USBC has the right strategy to deal with the issues - not only as they pertain to the automobile industry, but others as well.

"Activity based on facts and data...creates awareness and education, which leads to proper action and engagement," Bland says. The USBC, NAMAD and Hyundai are playing out this strategy, he said.

"Collectively, what they did is say, 'Hey, here's some information that says the African-American consumer is helping to drive a lot of growth in the U.S. auto industry.' Hyundai came and showed up, which is the initial action," Bland recounted. "They invited me to come out as a leader from IHS to provide some fact-based data; and together the three of us, along with Ron, had a conversation which provided awareness and proper education to the attendees. And then NAMAD took the additional step of signing the MOU which says that NAMAD is going to work with Ron Busby to collectively say how can we work together to identify potential growth opportunity for Black auto dealers. And then you have Hyundai, which says they're going to support the efforts as well."

Bland said African-Americans represent about 8 percent of all new vehicles sold in the United States. By April of this year, Blacks had bought 373,901 vehicles, which, at a conservative

$25,000 per vehicle, could end up at $24 billion by the end of this year. He listed the eight top brands selling most to African-Americans as the following in order of sales: Toyota, Nissan, Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Kia, Hyundai and Dodge.

Bland applauded Hyundai for having one of its executives present at the U. S. Black Chamber School of Management, "which I think is the first step."

But, Hyundai is just a start, Bland says. "The data that we have so far is a good foundation for Ron to now have really solid conversations with pretty much all the auto manufacturers; those that are doing great - 'Hey how can you further expand your platform today and make it even greater?' And those that are maybe trailing behind, 'Hey, how can you get up to par, get up to speed and then further expand that platform?'"

Busby not only has that issue, but other critical Black business issues on his plate. "The number one concern is access to capital," he said in an interview. "And Black businesses in particular feel like it is more challenging this year to get access to the funds to grow and start businesses than they ever have before."

Another issue often discussed in USBC circles is the question of how to convince African-American consumers to support Black-owned businesses. With an estimated spending power of $1.1 trillion, African-American economic power continues to grow exponentially. But, the average African-American dollar only stays six hours within the Black community, the USBC stated in a release.

Busby, whose non-profit USBC has a membership of 240,000 Black-owned businesses and 115 chambers in 28 states, said he found it ironic that a recent Gallop poll revealed that Hispanic and Asian business-owners say they have not felt as much economic pressures as African-Americans.

"They have not felt the discrimination or the challenge of being a minority as much as African-Americans have," he said. "But yet we still have a very positive outlook for our future as business owners."

New Orleans Katrina Pain Index at Ten: Who Was Left Behind? by Bill Quigley

Aug. 17, 2015

New Orleans Katrina Pain Index at Ten: Who Was Left Behind?
By Bill Quigley

New Orleans under flood waters, 2005.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, the nation saw tens of thousands of people left behind in New Orleans. Ten years later, it looks like the same people in New Orleans have been left behind again.

The population of New Orleans is noticeably smaller and noticeably whiter. While tens of billions poured into Louisiana, the impact on poor and working people in New Orleans has been minimal. Many of the elderly and the poor, especially poor families with children, never made it back to New Orleans.

The poverty rate for children who did make it back remains at disturbingly high pre-Katrina levels, especially for Black children. Rents are high and taking a higher percentage of people’s income. The pre-Katrina school system fired all of its teachers and professionals and turned itself into the charter experiment capital of the U.S. even while the number of children in public schools has dropped dramatically.

Since Katrina, White incomes, which were over twice that of Blacks, have risen three times as much as Blacks. While not all the numbers below are bad, they do illustrate who has been left behind in the 10 years since Katrina hit:

33 - Rent in New Orleans is up 33 percent for one bedroom apartments and 41 percent for two bedroom apartments since Katrina hit. This is very tough because in New Orleans, 55 percent of residents rent. The national average is 35 percent. In 2005, one bedroom was $578 and two was $676. In 2015, it is $767 for one and $950 for two.

CNN/Money recently named New Orleans as one of the worst cities in the US for renters. Before Katrina the average renters spent 19 percent of their income on rent. The Data Center, a terrific resource for information on the region, reports 37 percent of renters in New Orleans now spend more than 50 percent of their income to rent. Rental apartments are mostly substandard as well with 78 percent, nearly 50,000 apartments, in the city needing major repairs.

38 - In 2005, 38 percent of the children in New Orleans lived in poverty, 17 percentage points higher than the U.S. as a whole. The most recent numbers show 39 percent of the children in New Orleans live in poverty, still 17 percentage points higher than the national average. 82 percent of these families have someone working in the family so the primary cause is low wages.

44 - New Orleans now has 44 school boards. Prior to Katrina, nearly all the public schools in New Orleans were overseen by the one Orleans Parish School Board. 91 percent of the public schools in New Orleans are now charter schools, the highest rate in the country. Only 32 percent of African- Americans believe the new nearly all charter school system is better than the public school system before the storm versus 44 percent of Whites even though precious few Whites attend the public schools.
50 - 50 percent of the Black children in New Orleans live in poor households, a higher percentage than when Katrina hit.
59 - New Orleans is now 59 percent African American, down from 66.7 percent in 2000; 31 percent White, up from 26 percent in 2000; and 5.5 percent Hispanic, up from 3 percent in 2000.

67 - Prior to Katrina, New Orleans incarcerated more of its citizens than any city in the US, five times the national average. Ongoing efforts by community members and local officials have reduced the number of people held in the jail by 67 percent.
73 - 73 percent of New Orleans students who start high school graduate on time.

3221 - There are now 3,221 fewer low income public housing apartments in New Orleans than when Katrina hit. In 2005 there were 5,146 low income public housing apartments in New Orleans, plus thousands of other public housing apartments scheduled for renewal or maintenance, nearly 100 percent African-American. The housing authority now reports having 1925 public housing apartments available for low income people on the sites of the demolished complexes, less than half of the number promised, and less than half of those completed have rents set at rates which are affordable to those who lived in public housing before Katrina, meaning the majority of their public housing units now require higher incomes from renters than the people who were living in public housing prior to Katrina. That is why only about half of the families who lived in the four public housing developments which were demolished after Katrina made it back to New Orleans at all by 2011. And only 7 percent of those original families were living in the new housing which replaced their homes.

6,000 - There are 6,000 fewer people on Social Security in Orleans Parish than before the storm. Orleans parish had 26,654 people on Social Security, either old age or disability, in 2004. Orleans parish had 20,325 people on Social Security in the latest report. There are similar drops in the numbers of people on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in New Orleans. There were just over 3,000 families receiving state temporary assistance in New Orleans in May 2005. As of May 2015, that number was down to 463.

7,500 - Over 7,500 public school teachers and paraprofessionals, mostly African-American, were fired after Katrina when Louisiana took over the New Orleans public school system. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear their appeal in May 2015.

9,000 - There are 9,000 fewer families receiving food stamps than before. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the old food stamps program. In May 2015, Orleans Parish had just under 40,000 households receiving SNAP benefits. In May 2005, New Orleans had 49,000 households receiving food stamps.

17,392 - There are 17,392 fewer children enrolled in public schools in New Orleans now than before Katrina. There were over 63,000 enrolled pre-Katrina and now there are 45,608.

$35,451 - The median income for White families in New Orleans is $60,553; that is $35,451 more than for Black families whose median income was $25,102. In the last 10 years the median income for Black families grew by 7 percent. At the same time,the median income for white families grew three times as fast, by 22 percent. In 2005, the median income for Black households was $23,394, while the median for White households was $49,262. By 2013, the median income for Black households had grown only slightly, to $25,102. But the median for White households had jumped to $60, 553.

44,516 - The New Orleans metro area (Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. James, St. John the Baptist, and St. Tammany Parishes) has 44,516 more Hispanic residents in 2013 than in 2000. The total is now 103,061, just over 8 percent of metro population according to The Data Center.

71,000 - Seventy one thousand fewer people live in New Orleans now than before the storm. In 2005, New Orleans had a population of 455,000 and in 2014 its population was 384,000.

99,650 - There are 99,650 fewer African-Americans living in New Orleans now than in 2000, compared to 11,000 fewer Whites.

$71,000,000,000 - Seventy one billion dollars was received by the State of Louisiana for Katrina repairs, rehabilitation and rebuilding. One look at this index and you see who did NOT get the money.

Bill teaches law at Loyola University New Orleans. You can reach Bill at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..