While some entrepreneurs can rely on home equity or other personal assets to get their businesses off the ground or navigate through a rough spot, the housing crisis — and the resulting glut of underwater homeowners — cut off...
On average, about two of every seven businesses in low-income, majority minority areas received small business loans—including business credit cards, lines of credit, and traditional loans of under $1 million—from large financial institutions with assets of more than $1...
As a lending team manager for micro-lender Accion Chicago, I’ve met the people behind the statistics in the study: hard-working, entrepreneurial people who have the potential to generate jobs for their neighborhood, but struggle to find access to credit...
That was one major finding in a report (.pdf file) by the California Reinvestment Coalition, Woodstock Institute, Reinvestment Partners and New Economy Project. The four organizations are calling upon the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and federal banking regulators to...
In a July 2014 article, Crain’s Chicago writes that there is a large gender gap in small business loans. The article examines the national trend of small business lending, but the statistics are just as staggering as those found...
discredited_policybrief_aug2014 (2).pdf
“Businesses need affordable capital in order to grow, create jobs, and generate economic activity,” said Spencer Cowan, Vice President of Research at Woodstock Institute. “This research clearly shows that businesses in low-income and majority minority communities do not have...
discredited_august2014_cowan Data from all regulated financial institutions shows the impact of the Great Recession on the availability of credit. Lending to businesses declined by 4.8 percent nationally between 2008 and 2011. The dollar volume of small loans to businesses...