By Chris Lisinski, State House News Service
April 8, 2021
Chris Lisinski, State House News Service
Massachusetts must increase entrepreneurship among people of color to help counteract a years-long decline in the number of new startups launching annually, and achieving that goal will require expanding support for minority-owned businesses, a new report concluded.
Between 2005 and 2018, fueled by industry consolidation, the number of new Bay State companies with employees formed every year dropped by 47 percent, MassINC and the Coalition for an Equitable Economy wrote in a report published on March 30.
Minority-owned business numbers are growing, which MassINC research director Ben Forman said is a “promising sign” for the entrepreneurship outlook, but white residents remain about 2.5 times more likely to own a business than Black residents.