» African-American Business Owners are in Short Supply GMI Blog

African-American Business Owners are in Short Supply

20 February 2008

As part of our larger study on African-American culture, we asked African-Americans to rank the economic strength of their community. The answer was nearly unanimous: 97% said there aren’t enough African-American owned establishments to address all their shopping needs. More than two-thirds said there are very few or no African-American owned establishments close to where they live.
Survey data shows that money flowing into the African-American community is quite low. After paying for housing, 70% of African-American respondents spend less than 20% of their income at African-American owned establishments. Half spend less than 10% of their income at African-American owned shops.
Even though most African-American respondents admit they shop where it is convenient, 72% indicated they would still like to shop at African-American owned establishments. We asked respondents if they could get all their shopping done at African-American businesses:

3% said there are enough African-American owned establishments close by to finish all their shopping.
11% said there are a lot of African-American owned shops, but not enough to finish all their shopping.
19% said there are some African-American owned shops.
48% said there are very few African-American owned shops.
19% said there are no establishments owned by African-Americans close to them.

If you would like to see the full results of the African-American Culture Study, please visit www.theafricanamericanvoice.com.