How Our Local & Regional Economy Benefits from Diversity Businesses

The success of businesses across our nation and in Massachusetts has never come more to the forefront than it has in the years during the global covid-19 pandemic. Experts and financial laypeople alike understand the significance of having a robust and healthy economy after such an impactful pandemic. That economy must include the dynamic and growing proportions of diversity-owned businesses in the United States and in cities and towns closer to home.

For this article, we will be using interchangeably diversity-owned, minority-owned, and minority-owned business enterprises as various organizations use different terms to express similar findings.

Diversity-Owned Businesses Impact in the U.S.

According to a September 2021 Contribution of Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs) to the US Economy Report, “Minority firms and workers are a growing share of U.S. businesses and the workforce. As a result, the strength of the broader U.S. economy is increasingly tied to minority-owned business enterprises (MBEs) performance. It has been estimated that there were approximately 9.2 million employers and non-employer (classifiable) MBEs combined, generating $1.7 trillion in revenue and with employer MBEs providing more than 8.9 million jobs prior to the pandemic.”

These statistics show the vital importance of diversity-owned businesses to our national economy. Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs) are not only fast-growing, innovative, and represented in every industry sector in the United States. They also play a critical role in reducing the unemployment rate nationally. Minority-owned businesses directly contribute to the U.S. economy and account for the creation of millions of U.S. jobs.

State & Regional Benefits of Diversity-Owned Businesses

The nation as a whole benefits from diversity-owned businesses and so does the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and our regional economy on the north shore. 

According to an article authored by Karen Wallace of AIM (Associated Industries of Massachusetts), a member-driven mission-based organization that promotes economic opportunity, innovation, and entrepreneurship, Massachusetts has historically been in the vanguard of movements to provide equality and respect to all citizens, there is still much work to be done to create opportunities for access for historically and systemically marginalized communities.

At the regional and state levels, diversity-owned businesses such as those owned by LGBTQ+, women, BIPOC, veterans, and immigrants deliver many of the same benefits that we see at the national level. Thousands of diversity-owned businesses employ people in these marginalized groups, add to the revenue of the state of Massachusetts, and contribute to the output of goods and services produced in the Commonwealth.

Additionally, diversity-owned businesses strengthen neighborhoods and communities where they operate. They employ workers from local communities that are more likely to be diverse candidates. They are wealth builders for our state and contribute to the long history of innovation and ingenuity, in our state. And they help to close the racial wealth gaps in equity and opportunity.

To find out more about the many ways that diversity-owned businesses positively impact our region and state visit our Diversity Directory page and continue to read our blogs on this topic.