Black Business Owners Had A Harder Time Getting Federal Aid, A Study Finds

Black business owners are more likely to be hindered in seeking coronavirus financial aid than their white peers, a new study has found. The study looked at how more than a dozen Washington-area banks handled requests for loans under the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program. It was conducted by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a nonprofit in Washington, in partnership with researchers from universities in Utah and New Jersey. From late April to late May, the researchers and the nonprofit, which advocates better access to capital for low-income and minority communities, sent pairs of would-be loan applicants to branches of 17 banks. In each pair, a Black borrower and a white borrower shared similar credit and asset characteristics, so the only difference between them was their race. To make the study more conservative, the researchers gave each Black borrower a slightly better financial profile than his or her white counterpart. Read more at The New York Times.