Small businesses lose employment gains amid COVID crisis: report
NYC comptroller proposes policy-based aid strategies
Small businesses are the backbone of the city’s neighborhoods, have employed hundreds of thousands of workers, and have been a way for low-income New Yorkers to enter the middle class. However, the COVID pandemic has threatened to wipe out these gains.
A report by the city Comptroller’s Office details the effect of the coronavirus on small businesses and offers proposals to reverse those effects. The report, which is called “Save Main Street,” also offers some fascinating statistics that break down trends borough by borough, and in some cases neighborhood by neighborhood.
There are currently 66,133 small businesses in the city. Before the pandemic, employment in these businesses citywide steadily grew from 451,566 in 2001 to 694,119 in 2019 — and then it fell to 428,166 as of this May. In Brooklyn, the number of small businesses in the borough grew 36 percent from 2009 to 2019, a growth that is now threatened by the coronavirus.