2021 | 1,139 exporters, $1.12 billion in exports |
2020 | 1,001 exporters, $1.10 billion in exports |
2019 | 1,514 exporters, $0.81 billion in exports |
2018 | 1,400 exporters, $0.83 billion in exports |
2017 | 1,200 exporters, $0.62 billion in exports |
* Census/BEA, most recent data available
Here’s President Biden a week before Christmas, talking up Milwaukee’s African American business community:
“Black small businesses with the talent, integrity, and ingenuity are the engines and the glue that hold communities together. … You’re the ones that sponsor the Little League teams. You’re the one that spon- — involved in the church events. You’re the ones that hold the community together, and you keep it going. You keep it moving. And every new business opening is a — is a vote for hope — just hope. Hope. You know, you’re making the American economy stronger and our nation more competitive.”
Biden’s enthusiastic remarks go on to report a lot of good news: the fastest growth in African American business formation since the 1990s; a doubling in the “share of Black households owning a business,” and a 60% rise in household wealth since 2019. Underneath these data are many stories — some of community collaboration, some of individual enterprise and inspiration, many of hard work, some of policy, many with some of each. Here’s one of the latter, in U.S. trade agencies’ effort to support African American exporting firms as they recover from a calamity:
Background: Each year since 2017, the Census and the Bureau of Economic Analysis have published a statistical picture of American exporting businesses. These include counts by size, race/ethnicity/gender of the owners, top markets and export earnings, employment, and payroll. These reports are labor-intensive projects requiring lots of detail work, and their data usually trail real-world events by three years. But they offer the most detailed description of exporting communities available anywhere in the world. The 2019 survey reports, for example, 1,514 African-American businesses selling over $800 million worth of goods to 60 countries — $43 million to China, $12 million to Ghana, $111 million to Canada, and so on. These (like exporters generally) are generally good employers. In 2021, they averaged 21 workers apiece, at a payroll of $64,600 per worker, whereas across the full list of ‘classifiable’ U.S. businesses — i.e., all privately-owned U.S. firms whose owners the Census and BEA could identify, exporters or not — the comparable averages were 11 workers at a payroll of $54,520 per employee.
COVID Impact: As we noted last summer, the COVID-19 pandemic hit this community very hard. By 2020, the Census/BEA count had fallen from 1,501 to 1,014 exporters — a 34% drop, seven times the 5% loss among all exporters, and well above the 8% of white-owned exporters and the 6% of Hispanic exporters. This is consistent with broader experience, as (for example) Federal Reserve economists reported that African American businesses closed at much higher rates than average in the spring of 2020. A closer look finds the number of medium-sized and large exporters — defined as businesses employing 100 workers or more — pretty stable; Census and BEA report 47 to 49 such businesses in 2019, 2020, and 2021, with exports between $200 million and $400 million per year. Though there are some gaps in the data among smaller firms, the drop in their exporter total appears to be concentrated in small firms with fewer than 20 workers each.
Policy Since: Over the past three years, the government’s trade bureaucracy — Biden’s political appointees and civil servants at Secretary Raimondo’s Commerce Department, Reta Lewis’ Ex-Im Bank, and other agencies; career loan officers and regional export promotion specialists at 107 Commerce Department sites around the United States, U.S. Commercial Services officers at 146 overseas missions — have been trying to help the community repair the damage. A quick snapshot of one:
The Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration’s Global Diversity Export Initiative creates an array of support programs ranging from webinars to high-level overseas missions: an on-line training session last Thursday for African-American businesses on opportunities and frequent challenges overseas; a South Africa mission for personal-care product manufactures this spring; eight “Bridges to Global Markets” events around the country for diverse companies hoping to find foreign customers this year, in the Mississippi Delta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Atlanta, and other sites. Here’s GDEI lead Terri Batch, enthusiastically looking back at last year’s National Black Business Summit:
“We met with Black business owners from every corner of the country to promote ITA’s resources to support Black entrepreneurs – particularly those who haven’t previously engaged in international trade – discover new international markets for their products and services. During this event, I had the opportunity to moderate a Pan African Diaspora lunch panel that featured the services of the U.S. Commercial Service, Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), the U.S. Patent and Trademark Agency (USPTO), as well as entrepreneur and founder of Eminent Future, Isaac Barnes. This dynamic panel offered practical advice and support for black businesses pursuing business opportunities in Africa and beyond. Throughout the conference, we were also joined by speakers from other federal agencies including U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Census Bureau, and Prosper Africa. This whole-of-government approach to provide support for black-owned businesses to grow and scale into international markets is essential to carry out an inclusive and equitable economic agenda.”
And here are her Milwaukee colleagues, at work today a few miles west of Biden’s speech site and trying to help. The data from BEA and Census are so far available only for 2021. But they do show an early rebound from the 1,001 exporters of 2020 to 1,139, and pretty substantial export growth, from the pre-Covid $806 million to more than $1 billion in 2021. All helping to underline and vindicate Biden’s Christmastime enthusiasm.
Biden in Milwaukee.
And his hosts at the Wisconsin Black Chamber of Commerce.
Government and policy:
The Commerce Department’s Global Diversity Export Initiative.
… DoC Assistant Secretary Arun Venkataraman explains the GDEI in Houston.
… Los Angeles-based ITA trade specialist Terri Batch reports from last summer’s National Black Business Summit.
… and reflects on her own public service for Commerce’s Black History Month observance last year.
Ex-Im Bank has options for African-American businesses hoping to begin exporting.
… and works with the Congressional Black Caucus on strategic planning.
And the Small Business Administration’s export center.
Data:
From Census and BEA, the world’s best statistical portraits of exporting communities by ownership, markets, export value, employment and payroll from 2017 to 2021.
… and Census’ annual report on exporters and importers by large/medium/small size, known as “Profile of Importing and Exporting Companies,” with totals, state-by-state figures, and 25 overseas markets.
And for context, the New York Fed (2020) studies the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on African American business.
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.