New report details financial challenges facing LGBTQ-owned small businesses
The Center for LGBTQ Economic Advancement and Research and the Movement Advancement Project on Wednesday released a report on LGBTQ-owned small businesses, using data from the Federal Reserve Bank’s annual Small Business Credit Survey.
The 2021 SBCS — which was used for CLEAR and MAP’s report — marked the first time the survey included questions about LGBTQ ownership. “The Federal Reserve defines LGBTQ-owned small businesses as businesses with fewer than 500 employees where people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer own half or more of the business,” a CLEAR press release said.
CLEAR and MAP made six key findings in their analysis of the survey’s publicly available data: • LGBTQ-owned small businesses are more likely to be women and immigrant owned; the largest share of LGBTQ businesses was in the South (31 percent); • LGBTQ businesses were more likely to report facing and responding to operational and financial challenge; • More LGBTQ businesses were negatively impacted by the pandemic; • LGBTQ businesses were more likely to apply for pandemic relief and less likely to receive it; and LGBTQ businesses were more likely to apply for general loans and financing but less likely to receive it.
The report’s findings highlighted the diversity of LGBTQ-owned small businesses, which are generally younger (64 percent were less than 10 years old) and smaller than non-LGBTQ businesses.
