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Comment by nickff | Hacker News Reader

According to the US Census Bureau, 9.4% of businesses were black-owned, as of 2012. According to the same report, 78% of businesses were white-owned in 2012.

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-209...

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As I noted in my other comment, in the linked paper, only 14% of business chose to self-identify race, so it's not clear how biased this data set is.

a majority of modern studies on race rely on sampling. The sample size here (14%) was large enough statistically

This is not a sample in the statistical sense. This is a self-selected subset. Any bias in the groups in question towards answering or not answering this question is not assessed by the study, and the assumption that the sample is representative of the population is entirely unfounded.

A vast majority of studies in the US on race use self-reported data.

Which lets us know we should be taking the results of such so called studies with large grains of salt

For the purpose of PPP we need to narrow down to the businesses that have paid employees. Over 95% of black owned businesses do not according to the 2012 SBO Census.

Edit: More data -

"Data from the Small Business Administration indicates that just over 19 million businesses, or 70.9 percent of all U.S. businesses, are white-owned. Blacks own about 2.6 million businesses or 9.5 percent of all U.S. businesses, and Latinos own 3.3 million businesses or 12.2 percent of all American businesses. But the sales and employment numbers tell a more depressing story. The 19 million white-owned businesses have 88 percent of the overall sales, and control 86.5 percent of U.S. employment, while black businesses have a mere 1.3 percent of total American sales, and 1.7 percent of the nation’s employees."

Seems like the loan rate roughly matches the % of employees by group.

You can use the PPP to pay yourself as well.

That said for me it didn’t seem worth it, as I wouldn’t get unemployment during that time - and if I somehow screwed up it would mean I’d need to repay it. No chance of that on unemployment.

I, the author, was not seeking to show intent to discrimate. I as only showing the policy effectively did discriminate. In order to show intent I would need the statistics you mentioned but to show the effect the stats you mentioned are entirely irrelvant

I added my comment not to imply intentional discrimination, but as a slightly better 'base-rate' than the statistic you offered, which was African-Americans as a proportion of Americans.

I personally think it is most likely that more of the money went to larger corporations than intended.

The correct base rate to use to determine 'effective' discrimintation (as intended or unintended consequence) is the general population.

Well, it depends on your definition of effective discrimination; you could also argue that what matters most is how many employees of PPP-recipient companies were AA. Going another step, one might argue that what matters is the employment impact of PPP on different races.

I am not sure which of these metrics is most important, but I think comparing PPP recipient ownership to the general population is rather blunt, especially if it is the only metric offered.

the US Treasury controls the IRS, funds the US govenrment and is in charge of all money printing in the US. Every man (and woman) is equal before the law/govt. Hence it makes sense to analyze how the activity of the US Treasury benefits one group over another.

And 78% of businesses were white-owned as of 2012. (same source)

I was updating my comment with this statistic as you were posting yours; apologies if it 'steals your thunder'.

I think the most useful comparison would be to judge it against expenses, since not all businesses would need the same amount of loans. The closest related statistic I could find is that all minority-owned businesses generate around 3% of revenue. The loans seem to have been given out fairly evenly as intended, but the small impact of black businesses on the economy seems like a much more significant disparity.

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-01/most-of-amer...

So that raises its own set of interesting questions that hits at the core of the issues that the article discusses: why is it the case that 9.4% of businesses are black-owned yet only generate 3% of revenue? Are there issues with, say, obtaining a loan? Do they face challenges to growth that white-owned businesses do not? When fixated on the statistics, it's easy to forget the human questions around the disparity.

Absolutely, and that 3% is for all minority-owned businesses, not just black-owned. One large part of the problem is likely that the higher revenue industries are dominated by big businesses that shut out small businesses. Here’s an industry breakdown showing a very small representation in industries like information.

https://blackdemographics.com/economics/black-owned-business...

I, the author, was not claiming intent to discrimnate. I was only showing the effect of the policy so the stat you mentioned is irrelevant

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