Black and African American women are driving small business growth: How do we sustain the momentum?

By David Larkin

Today, Black and African American women are driving small business growth and are one of the fastest-growing groups of entrepreneurs in America. Currently there are 2.1 million small businesses owned by Black/African American women in the United States who employ 528,000 business employees and generate $98.3 billion. In total, Black women represent 14.8 percent of all women-owned businesses.

To give some perspective, after the 2008 financial crisis, women-owned businesses, in general, had not only recovered but had surpassed average revenue levels from before the crisis to 2008: US$172,000 in 2019 compared to US$151,700 before the crisis. However, this was not the case for Black/African American women-owned businesses, whose average revenue was US$35,600 in 2019 compared to US$40,400 prior to the crisis.

Fast forward to COVID-19, Black women-owned businesses came out stronger after the economic shock of the pandemic, with average revenues for these businesses increasing 32.7 percent between 2019 and 2023 compared to all women-owned businesses’ with a 12.1 percent rise.