Regional Insights: Why supporting black-owned businesses is a good idea
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Hidden behind the many positive rankings of the Pittsburgh region is the poor economic condition of the region's African-American population. Census data for 2009 show that southwestern Pennsylvania has the highest rate of poverty for working-age African Americans of any major region in the country. More than one of every three African Americans (37 percent) in our region is poor. That's nearly quadruple the 10 percent poverty rate among the white population in Pittsburgh, and double the 19 to 20 percent poverty rates among African Americans in regions such as Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, and Charlotte.
As discussed in a previous column (Regional Insights: High Black Poverty a Shame, July 4, 2010; www.post-gazette.com/pg/10185/1070089-432.stm), part of the solution to this persistent problem is improving the performance of our public schools and expanding training and assistance programs for African Americans.
But another important element of a comprehensive solution is increasing the number and size of African-American-owned businesses. These help to bring wealth as well as jobs into their community, and their leaders can help to ensure the region's economic development strategies support all segments of the community.
How is the Pittsburgh region doing in creating and expanding African-American-owned businesses? Some important insights can be gained from the national Survey of Business Owners released earlier this year. It was conducted as part of the 2007 Economic Census.
Based on the Census Bureau's estimates, there were 6,101 African-American-owned firms in the Pittsburgh region in 2007. That's the fifth-smallest number among the 38 largest metro regions for which statistics are available.
You might expect there to be relatively few African-American businesses here simply because of the small size of the corresponding population. However, if you adjust for that, things look even worse: Pittsburgh ranks dead last among the largest regions in the ratio of the number of Africa-American-owned firms to the number of working-age African-American residents.
First Published May 1, 2011 12:00 am
