When Jennifer Kelly applied for an emergency loan for small businesses through a major bank last spring, she found herself shut out.
Kelly, who runs a clinical psychology practice outside Atlanta, was not the only one. Businesses owned by Blacks and Latinos were often at the back of the line last year as the government rushed out hundreds of billions of dollars in Paycheck Protection Program loans. The money was intended to help small businesses keep their workers on the payroll during the pandemic.
“It was almost as if, when I needed them, they were not available to me,” Kelly said. “Clearly, I’m not a big business. But I’m a small business. And to me, we’re the fabric of America.”
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