Data on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)-Owned Businesses: What's Out There and What Can Be Done?

Abstract

Decades into the digital era, publicly available data on Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) owned businesses are still remarkably lacking. In this commentary piece, the authors cover recent literature on the importance of BIPOC-owned businesses for equitable growth and BIPOC wealth-building. The authors then examine the sources of data that are available – public and private – for tracking the success or failure of such businesses. A BIPOC business database was constructed from a variety of sources and used by the authors to examine the potential pitfalls of such exercises. The authors close with a call for better data collection on BIPOC businesses.