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This post is part of a five-part series called Relief to Recovery, an analysis done by Joseph Parilla and Sifan Liu of Brookings Institute.  What to know As the nation recovers from the pandemic, the strategic lens for small business support will shift from averting destruction to making strategic investments in entrepreneurship ecosystems and smallRead more

This post is part of a five-part series called Relief to Recovery, an analysis done by Joseph Parilla and Sifan Liu of Brookings Institute.  What to Know In normal times, small businesses are constantly being created and destroyed. This churn makes entrepreneurship a risky journey for individual business owner, but can be a good thingRead more

This post is part of a five-part series called Relief to Recovery, an analysis done by Joseph Parilla and Sifan Liu of Brookings Institute.  “Small business” is an unhelpfully broad segment. This brief focuses on small businesses with fewer than 100 employees, with the acknowledgement that smaller businesses have experienced particular challenges during the economicRead more

This post is part of a five-part series called Relief to Recovery, an analysis done by Joseph Parilla and Sifan Liu of Brookings Institute.  With vaccine rates increasing and the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP) delivering flexible resources to localities and states, small business support remains a key priority for local leaders as theyRead more

Adapted from article by William H. Frey on 1/11/21 Over the coming months, the U.S. Census Bureau will roll out the results of the 2020 census, its once-a-decade headcount that will give us precise details on the size, growth, age, and racial-ethnic makeup of the nation’s population. In the lead-up to that over the pastRead more

The COVID recession that began in March 2020 has had a disparate effect on workers depending on many factors: industry, occupation, level of education parental status, race, and gender. For example, declines in employment have been largest for workers of color and those with less formal education. Such disproportionate effects owe in large part toRead more

Months of dispersion throughout the northeast and southern United States has finally seen the COVID outbreak concentrating in rural areas, surging in remote, sparsely populated towns and inflicting a toll on all communities within them. Alongside this rural surge comes doomsday queries: Will rural America be able to survive this storm? Can rural small businesses-theRead more

The word “rural” has been thrown around the past few years by everyone. As the word is used more and more frequently, misconceptions begin to grow about what it truly means. The current trend of what is used to define rural America is white, dependent on traditional industries, and characterized by stagnation, decline, and despair.Read more