Minority-Owned Business Firms Now Represent Majority In Inland Empire

INLAND EMPIRE, CA — Minority entrepreneurs make up more than half of all Inland Empire business firm owners, a new report released Tuesday finds.

The first-ever State of Entrepreneurship Minority Report released by the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship at California State University, San Bernardino, found just over 50% of inland business firms are owned by minority entrepreneurs — with Hispanic owners representing the largest portion.

In 2017, minority entrepreneurs in the Inland Empire — Riverside and San Bernardino counties — numbered under 40% percent, the report authors found.

The Inland Empire's minority entrepreneurship outpaces the state and the nation. In 2021, about 34% of California's business firms were minority-owned compared to approximately 20% nationwide, the report found.

There is disparity, however, in the racial makeup of the Inland Empire's minority entrepreneurs.

"While minority entrepreneurship is relatively robust in the Inland Empire region, when we look deeper at the data we observe that growth rates of firm ownership vary depending on the specific ethnicity/race. In particular, the percentage of Hispanic-owned firms has significantly grown over the past five years, despite the pandemic effect. At the same time, the percentage of firm ownership in African-American, Native-American, and Asian Indian groups has fallen significantly below the national level in the post-pandemic period, indicating significant firm failure/exit in these groups, respectively," according to the report.

The reasons why minority entrepreneurs launch businesses pose challenges and opportunities.

“Minority entrepreneurship is an incredibly positive indicator for the Inland Empire,” said Mike Stull, director of the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship. “Overall, the rate of new entrepreneurs outpaces the national level, but lags when it comes to new ventures being created by individuals out of choice rather than necessity.

“These necessity ventures tend to be those in which innovation and scalability are lacking and often do not have larger economic impacts such as extensive job creation and large multiplier effects throughout the supply chain," Stull continued.

As a result of evaluating the data, IECE implemented new programs to provide greater support to minority entrepreneurs, according to the center. Also in development are multiple entrepreneurial resource centers, microloan and/or seed grant programs, and a food entrepreneurship HUB.

The goal of the research compiled in the report is to bring awareness on a regional level to the minority business community and recognize the key contributing factors that may be helping or hurting minority business growth and development, according to IECE.

For a copy of the full report visit https://entre.csusb.edu/content/SOER.