Are N.J.’s Black businesses thriving or just surviving?

Faye Coleman, a board member for the New Jersey African American Chamber of Commerce, had a clear description for how she viewed the state of Black business.

“Putting my oxygen mask on and hoping it doesn’t run out,” she said.

Coleman, who is building a retail cannabis store in Atlantic City, has found success. She had previous Fortune 500 experience and was one of the few people in the cannabis industry who had control over her business and real estate.

“Having a team that was curated for growth versus start-up” was key, she said.

While Black-owned businesses in New Jersey have been opening at a rapid rate, chamber leaders say they’re worried about how many will survive.

An estimated 10% of the state’s businesses, about 88,000, are Black-owned, and the community represents 15% of the labor force, 2023 statistics from the state show.

Black business ownership grew about 25% from pre-pandemic levels, according to to a 2022 report by the state Economic Development Authority. The EDA cautioned that while this was a “welcome sign,” many were small businesses “usually strapped for cash” and that access to credit remains one of the “biggest challenges” for Black entrepreneurship and business cultivation.

African American Chamber of Commerce president John Harmon said the majority of Black businesses are sole proprietorships — and they’re staying that way.

“Black business starts are up, so that means a lot of Black people are starting businesses, but in terms of growing at an appreciable clip where they can sustain themselves, the answer’s no,” Harmon said when asked about whether the landscape for Black business in New Jersey was an overall good one.

Chamber leaders at a conference in early February and at a gala celebrating Black History Month last week said their hopes for Black business growth are mixed with frustration. And many believe New Jersey’s ruling Democratic Party takes them for granted.

Harmon makes his point by reciting two numbers: 94, the percentage of Black voters who supported Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s candidacy in 2017; and 1, for the tiny percentage of state contracts Black businesses received from 2015 to 2020, according to a recently released disparity study commissioned by the Murphy administration.

The study, which looked at $18.6 billion in state contracts covering everything from construction work to engineering services or supplying computer equipment, included years under the Democratic governor, who took office in 2018.

Black businesses received 0.43% of all formal construction prime contracts awarded during the study period, representing $3.3 million, or 0.03%, of the construction prime contract payments.

“I knew it was bad,” Harmon said of the study. “I didn’t know it was this bad.”

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