Coronavirus: Why California’s Small Businesses May Not Survive
Whatever the medical benefits achieved from the prolonged coronavirus lockdown, California’s small business community will be suffering severe symptoms, likely for decades to come. The state’s small entrepreneurs, particularly in poorer areas, face major readjustments and perhaps obliteration, a situation further complicated for some by damage stemming from the protests over the killing of George Floyd.
These small firms were already in parlous shape before COVID-19. Despite the immense wealth generated in Silicon Valley and among real estate speculators and the entertainment elite, most of the state’s growth in recent years was in low-end service businesses. As a result, 80% of all jobs created in the state over the past decade paid less than the state median income and half of those well under $40,000, according to Marshall Toplansky, a researcher at Chapman University. Read more