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Comment by radlad | Hacker News Reader

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

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

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

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