May is typically a time set aside to recognize the contributions of entrepreneurs and small business employers around the country as we celebrate National Small Business Week and Small Business Month. This year stands in stark contrast as we do all we can to support small businesses that have shuttered and have been forced to layoff employees due to the spread of COVID-19. This is why it’s important now more than ever to understand the importance of small businesses to a thriving, job-creating economy and ensure they don’t just survive this crisis—but that we promote a robust small business ecosystem that addresses inequities and promotes quality jobs in the Bay Area and nationwide.

Here in California, four million small businesses, nearly half of which are owned by people of color, employ more than seven million people—nearly half of the entire private sector workforce. And importantly, most new jobs are created by businesses with fewer than 20 employees.

Many of these small business owners come to think of their hard-working employees like family, which makes the current crisis all the more devastating for the small business community. Small Business Majority polled small businesses in California last month to better understand the impacts of COVID-19 on small businesses and their workforce, and the results are dire.

An astounding 92% said the coronavirus has impacted their business, with nearly half reporting it has had a severe negative impact. And 44% of small businesses in California have already closed or are planning to do so in the next two months.

Unfortunately, small businesses reported widespread layoffs and furloughs. Thirty-one percent have permanently laid off their employees, roughly half (49%) have furloughed employees and most (71%) have reduced hours, salary or both for their employees as a result of the crisis. More than 4 in 10 (41%) have permanently laid off, furloughed or reduced the hours/salary of their entire workforce.

These devastating numbers underscore why we must take action to ensure small businesses can recover, rehire and sustain good jobs in California. We asked small businesses what they need right now to help them survive this crisis, and most small businesses (93%) reported they need direct grant assistance.

This is why at Small Business Majority we have worked since the beginning of the crisis to educate stakeholders, policymakers and the media about the importance of small businesses to our economic recovery and why we need a robust, direct grant program to reopen Main Street and get people back to work. To date, thousands of small businesses and advocates for the business community have signed our letter calling for a direct grants program for small businesses.

What’s more, last week we released our new Roadmap to Recovery that outlines immediate and long-term actions in key areas that can ensure small businesses’ survival and help businesses and their employees thrive after this crisis. We’re particularly concerned with promoting a more level playing field for entrepreneurs of color, women, immigrants and other underserved businesses that create jobs in their local communities. This is especially important to the Bay Area as we work to address inequalities in our local economy and ensure we can overcome the pandemic.

While parts of our region slowly start to reopen, the impacts on our small business community and the workforce continue to be bleak. But we have an opportunity right now to recognize the important role small businesses play in providing critical jobs and enact changes that will bolster them, and our workforce as a whole.

The time to act is now.

Mark Herbert serves as Vice President, California for Small Business Majority, overseeing the organization’s policy, outreach and development efforts across the state. Mark is also a member of ReWork the Bay’s Equity at Work Council where he represents small businesses in the conversation about making our regional economy more equitable.

This blog post highlights a published report from the Insight Center.

With nearly half of all Californians at high risk of unemployment and the Bay Area anticipating more than 800,000 job losses by May, it is time to unpack the root causes of racial and gender inequities endangering those whose labor is valued in our society, but not their full selves.

In the Bay Area, more than 1 out of every 2 retail and grocery workers cannot take paid sick leave, and women are less likely to get authorized leave than men. Black, Asian, and Latinx households hit especially hard by the virus still log long hours in low-wage positions like personal care, agriculture, and food prep.

“Re-imagining a Bay Area Workforce System Grounded in Racial and Gender Equity,” a new report from the Insight Center, examines how women and people of color have made untold contributions across industries, despite being denied basic rights and fair wages due to racism, sexism and xenophobia baked into our workforce policies and practices. These injustices are amplified by the current crisis, and we will need a workforce system designed specifically to meet the needs of marginalized groups in order to have a just and inclusive recovery.

Supported by ReWork the Bay, a collaborative of funders, advocates, workers, and employers housed at The San Francisco Foundation, the report highlights the challenges the Bay Area Workforce system has in meeting the needs of women, people of color, and immigrants. As a result of discriminatory policies reinforced by harmful narratives, many of these workers are forced to live on the edge because of the systems and laws that have continued to devalue them.

Despite reforms like the 8-hour work day, labor victories of the past two centuries heavily benefited white men and deliberately excluded others because of their race and gender. Nineteenth century unions, for example, achieved landmark benefits that left out women and people of color — often crowded, both then and now, into low-wage professions in service, domestic, and agricultural work — from basic rights such as overtime pay and minimum wage.

As the coronavirus pandemic unfolds, it reveals the deep scars of these economic inequities by race and gender. For far too long, the very jobs powering the Bay Area have barely provided enough to keep the lights on and put food on the table, much less weather a health emergency, lay off, or recession. As shown in the report, the region’s most common profession, personal care or caregiving, is 80 percent female, largely done by women of color, and pays a median hourly rate of $11.68 that is well below San Francisco’s minimum wage. The five most common jobs, including retail and food prep, are heavily filled by women and people of color and pay a median annual wage about $90,000 less than other common occupations more frequently taken by white men.

During the Great Recession, the Bay Area launched unprecedented cross-county partnerships that will prove crucial to sharing the data, ideas, and resources needed to with stand and overcome this pandemic. True to the region’s progressive spirit, local stakeholders can take the lead in pushing for systemic change, especially when federal actors may stall or even impede reform. For one, ensuring that undocumented workers — the cornerstone of nearly all essential industries and services — can quickly access all available relief funds should be a top priority in every county. In addition, workforce boards can take a stand, together, in ensuring that the nearly 70,000 personal care aides across the region gain added protection through statewide employment law reform, the creation of a comprehensive long-term care system, and access to basic savings accounts.

As we brace for uncertainty and loss, applying a racial and gender equity frame to the Bay Area workforce development system can challenge us to learn from a shared past, liberating us to envision a workforce where all are seen and valued for their full, and truly essential, worth.

Aisa Villarosa is the Associate Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Insight Center for Community and Economic Development. An artist and attorney, Aisa blends creativity, analysis, and advocacy to drive change toward racial and gender equity.

The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic crisis has pulled back the curtain on economic and societal problems that we have allowed to fester in the Bay Area for far too long.

At the same time, the Bay Area continues to have plenty of resources, both financial and human, to be an inclusive region where all people have quality, empowered employment.

Prior to the pandemic, income inequality had already reached levels that were actively threatening our region’s diversity—the lifeblood of our culture, economy, and identity. Despite the dire consequences that all Bay Area residents faced if we continued down the path of “haves and have-nots”, we still were not able to harness our region’s power and resources to create a diverse and equitable Bay Area where all people can live and thrive.

Of the many things that Shelter-in-Place is revealing about our society and economy, nothing is clearer than the fact that a vast number of Bay Area residents work in jobs that are essential to our communities functioning. At the same time, these essential jobs are often plagued by appallingly low pay, poor working conditions and gaps in public safety net programs that rob essential workers of the security and dignity they deserve.

At the same time, the small business community, who are often the most likely to invest in their local neighborhoods and hire people who are often passed over for corporate jobs, are fighting for their lives.

As the unemployment rate climbs, tax bases shrink, and quality of life aspirations make way for survival instincts, it will be easy for us to take on a scarcity mentality. Historically, we know that job quality gains and worker-centered business practices, won in times of plenty, tend to be lost when a recession comes.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

An inclusive Bay Area starts with an inclusive recovery.

We can win shared prosperity in our region—it will take imagining and actualizing an inclusive recovery from this crisis. This means an inclusive recovery that provides enough quality, empowered jobs for everyone to have one. A recovery that offers equitable access to those jobs, in the form of quality education and training programs and fair hiring practices. And one that ensures universally available affordable supports that we all rely on to succeed at work, including transportation, housing and childcare.

None of this will come easily, nor can it be achieved by any one person, organization, company or funder—it will take all of us. It will not happen if we continue to work in silos, focusing on only one piece of the solution, without active collaboration with others who are working on the other pieces. We are in this together, and we will succeed or fail based on whether we are able to come together across differences for our future, and the future of the Bay Area.

ReWork the Bay brings together people who have historically worked in silos. Through convenings, research, pilot projects, and grantmaking we build authentic collaboration among leaders in economic justice, education and training, business, and philanthropy to advance collective solutions for a diverse and equitable Bay Area.

We are as strong as our people, and in the Bay Area that means we can’t be beat. But we need to move forward together if we want to realize the promise of shared prosperity so many of us believe is right. Now, more than ever, the Bay Area needs leaders who break through traditional divides, advancing collective solutions that make it possible for all of our community members to live full lives with security, dignity, and agency in our work, home, and communities. Shared prosperity is everyone’s job, and it’s time to go to work.

In times of crisis, it is important to not lose perspective on the history that brought us to this moment. To that end, the first piece we are sharing is from the Insight Center in Oakland about their new report: Re-imagining a Workforce System Grounded in Equity. This compelling report looks at the history of the Bay Area workforce system from a race and gender equity lens, and provides recommendations to funders and workforce system leaders to consider as we grapple with how our education and training systems must evolve to ensure an inclusive recovery.

Please see here for additional resources to continue the conversation around an inclusive economy in the Bay Area. We will continue to update these in the coming weeks.