Nicole Obi, President and CEO of the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts joined WBUR’s Morning Edition ahead of the council's annual Mass Black Expo to talk more about the pandemic’s impact on Black Bostonians.
Customers wait in line at Pure Oasis, a Black-owned recreational marijuana dispensary, in the Grove Hall neighborhood of Boston on June 24, 2020. from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found that white households in the city had an average net worth of nearly $248,000 compared to an $8 net worth for Black households. These findings had experts worried about how Black Bostonians and Black businesses would fare during and after the COVID pandemic.
"The pandemic, of course, really highlighted the vulnerability of the Black economy here in Massachusetts. So we had many of our businesses, which are often very small, fail during the pandemic, because they just don't have the scale or the access to capital to get through a crisis like other businesses were able to do. So we see a lot of businesses that are still slow in their recovery from the COVID crisis.""The pace is much slower than other businesses.
"So you're seeing downtowns, whether it's out in Framingham or in Boston, it's part of the reason why there's more vacancies that's occurring. We think this is an opportunity for Black and Brown business owners to actually grow through acquisition and move into and acquire some of these businesses that are going to be vacated over the next five years.
"Another issue that we're also seeing that we think is critically important is around health. There was a recent study that found that there was a 23 year difference in life expectancy between the Back Bay and Roxbury. This is in 2023. So, you can imagine that health affects wealth.
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