Patrice Onwuka joins the podcast this week as we shift our focus to the season of giving and spending and the importance of community. We talk specifically about the importance of American philanthropy and why it matters during a global pandemic. We also discuss how small business ownership among women has skyrocketed recently, the impact of the coronavirus on their survival, and the role of public policy in helping businesses through this pandemic.

Patrice Onwuka joins us. You all know her well. Patrice is a political commentator and Senior Policy Analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum. She is also a senior fellow with The Philanthropy Roundtable and a Tony Blankley Fellow at The Steamboat Institute. She has worked in policy, advocacy, and communications roles in Washington, D.C. for more than a decade and is a frequent guest on Fox News, Fox Business News, and PBS programs. She hosts a column called the New Agenda for Black Women on Newsmax.com and is a contributor to the Washington Examiner and The Hill.

Transcript

Beverly:

And welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg, and on today’s episode, our focus is a season of giving and spending and the importance of community through it all. We’ll talk about American philanthropy and why it’s so important, especially during a global pandemic, and how small business owners and independent contracting have opened doors for women by giving them freedom and flexibility. There are lots to cover, and we have the perfect person to break it all down. Patrice Onwuka joins us. You all know her well. She is a political commentator and Senior Policy Analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum. She is also a senior fellow with The Philanthropy Roundtable and a Tony Blankley Fellow at the Steamboat Institute. She has worked in policy, advocacy, and communications roles in Washington, D.C. for more than a decade, and is a frequent guest on Fox News, Fox Business, and PBS programs. Finally, she hosts a column called the New Agenda for Black Women on newsmax.com and is a contributor to the Washington Examiner and The Hill. A pleasure to have you on, Patrice.

Patrice:

Thank you so much, Beverly. What a great week to be on.

Beverly:

It’s a fun week to be on. We’re releasing this episode the day after Thanksgiving, on Black Friday and the day before small business Saturday, which I think perfectly wraps up the giving, spending and entrepreneurial focus we have for this episode. But I want to start with the giving side. So as I said, we released this, Thanksgiving was yesterday. I want to talk about that giving side and ask you why is private giving so important and has COVID changed the way people are going to think about giving at the end of this year? Is 2020 going to be the year of giving or has COVID changed a lot of it?

Patrice:

Sure. Well, private giving is incredibly important to Americans. I think we deeply understand the importance of having a third sector to private industry and to the government, that civil society, that it encompasses non-profit organizations, organizations that cover a variety of causes from soup kitchens and shelters to animal rescue organizations, to literacy organizations, and I think it’s because as Americans, we don’t wait for the government to solve our problems. We get right in there, we roll up our sleeves and we try to help our neighbors and build our communities. And I think that’s why the charitable industry or the charitable world is so important. And we give so much of our wealth to charities. I think last year we gave over $450 billion, which is again, hitting a new record or milestone for how much Americans have given away. And it’s remarkable. It’s not just the megadonors. It’s not just Bill Gates’ and Mark Zuckerberg’s.

It is you. It is your next-door neighbor. It’s the lady at church giving small donations to the causes that we care about because we believe, again, that it’s the private sector and specifically the charitable sector that is better equipped to deal with a lot of the social problems in our communities than the government.

Beverly:

And of course, there’s been so much economic uncertainty this year. 2020 has been quite a crazy year as we all know, and so while we don’t know yet what the end of year giving will be like, do you think Americans will still be giving, even though they may not know what their economic outlook looks like, and maybe basing that also on the fact that there are tax incentives to give?

Patrice:

Sure. Well, really one of the number one reasons people give is because they’re asked and because there’s an altruistic tendency we all have, whereas we want to ensure that other people have what they need or problems are solved. Tax incentives are a great incentive to give towards before the end of the year because people are able to claim it on their taxes. Although we’ve had fewer people claiming individuals deductions because the standardized deduction was raised. However, a lot of people will give for religious reasons, for personal reasons. So I think COVID-19 has certainly increased the amount of giving. We’ve seen a bump in giving earlier in the year, particularly to direct services, human services, soup kitchens, that kind of thing.

But that doesn’t mean that at the end of the year people still won’t give. And I think I’ve seen some recent polling and surveys where generally about a third of those who typically give, say they’re going to give it the same level and others who are saying that they’re going to give more. Now, of course, I’m sure we will lose some folks who have lost their jobs, who were furloughed, laid off businesses shut down who are not able to give as much, and maybe this time they are on the receiving end.

Beverly:

I want to let our listeners know that we’ll have Elise Westhoff, the president and CEO of the Philanthropy Roundtable on our December 24th episode. She’s going to talk about this in-depth and I think we’re going to have some more information on how giving has gone this year at that point in time. But I want to move from just the giving side now to the spending side, as I mentioned, we’re releasing this on Black Friday. A lot of people are going to be out there shopping on Cyber Monday as well since so many people are shopping online. When we think of women as consumers, do women tend to purchase more than men?

Patrice:

In terms of Black Friday spending, about half of Black Friday shoppers are women. Now, when you look through the types of shopping they do on a regular basis, women absolutely do much more shopping. According to a Nielsen survey, about 89% of women across the world say that they control the daily spending shopping needs of their households compared to only 41% of men who say that. So it’s not surprising. Women control the purse, they are making those decisions about buying groceries at the supermarket, maybe purchasing diapers on Amazon, maybe they’re going out and filling up the car with gas. So women are huge consumers and they control a tremendous amount of wealth in this country and resources. So when we think about Black Friday, we think about Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday too, all of that shopping women are going to be at the forefront of it.

Beverly:

This is why I think it’s so interesting, so many of the policies that IWF focuses on because as the tagline goes, all issues are women’s issues, but it’s often the left that wants us to think that as women we only care about a certain subset of issues. Don’t you think that this economic data, how we spend, how we budget, how we plan our households, that really does prove that so much about our lives is focused on the economy and is focused on the fiscal side of things?

Patrice:

It absolutely is, Beverly. It’s frustrating when we hear women’s topics being described as just those pertaining to our bodies. We are so much more than that. When we look at the number of women who are entrepreneurs, who own their own businesses, we’re talking about 42% of all businesses are owned by women in this country, and that’s increased over the past three decades exponentially. So this tells us that these women are making decisions about hiring, which means labor policies are really important to them. They’re making decisions about how to invest, where to invest, where they’re going to raise capital. So banking, finance, all of those different policies are on their minds and they’re following it very closely. And that’s why I love working for IWF, where we do get to dive into these different types of policies and look specifically at how women are affected.

So when I think about this weekend, and for example, Small Business Saturday, it’s going to be a huge opportunity for small business owners, many women across the country who may still be hurting from a lot of the shutdowns, the COVID restrictions that have been put in place, trying to get open, trying to keep their businesses afloat, because unfortunately, we’re going to see a lot of businesses not make it to New Year’s Day 2021.

Beverly:

I know, it’s so sad. There’ve been so many reports talking about it’s often the larger businesses, your Walmarts, your Amazons, that are really thriving during this time where people want to shop online, they’re free to go out. It’s a small business that is really struggling, and so when we think about the impacts of that on women, break down the numbers for us, when we think about small business owners, what percentage are women? What percentage of new small businesses in the past few years have been started by women, because are we looking at the destruction of small businesses, is that going to be especially harmful to women considering so many of them have started small businesses?

Patrice:

Sure. Well, we’ve got 12.9 million businesses that are women-owned, and as I mentioned, that’s about 42% of all businesses in the United States. They’re generating almost $2 trillion worth of revenue and pulling about 9 million workers. So a very significant number of part of the labor force. And when we look at the growth in small businesses, particularly over the past five years I would say, we’ve seen about a 21% increase. So to make that more realistic for people, there are over 1800 new businesses each day, Beverly, each day in 2018 and 2019. So it is tremendous, the amount of growth and interest in entrepreneurship when we look at the types of businesses. Personal services are very popular, hair, nail salons, people who deal with the body, with makeup, with cosmetics, you also see the health industry is also very popular. So home and health aid.

We also see a lot of growth in the social sector, people who are non-profits trying to help the community. These are areas where I think women are using their natural inclinations to want to see other people feel better, look better, have healthier lives, and turning that into successful business models. Thankfully, we’ve had a robust economy growing tremendously very, very fast that has really opened the door for women to start businesses and find customers who can pay and be able to continue that kind of growth. I’ll even spotlight minority women, minority women, black women, I’m one. But they are the fastest-growing demographic of small business owners in the country. So I think women have seen that there’s an opportunity to create new opportunities for themselves that has to do with deregulation, that has to do a task policy and that has to do with again, just a robust economy.

Now, all of that came to a screeching halt around March or April of this year, where we saw government-mandated lockdowns of businesses, severe restrictions on what people can do, and I think we’re seeing the repercussions of that. Interestingly, The New York Times just this morning had stories of immigrant women who are nail salon owners. They made it through the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic and they were hoping things would get back to normal. The summer was good. We had people coming in and then the fall hits and again, we’ve got new restrictions, we’ve got higher infection rates, and a lot of these businesses simply are saying that they’re not going to be able to survive. And it’s scary because small businesses are not just the backbone of our economy, but they employ so many of our workers. So there’s not going to be a strong economy and a strong labor force if we can’t figure out a way for businesses to operate and do so safely of course, but to operate.

Beverly:

That’s something that I wanted to pick your brain on because you do study the economic side of the business so often. We know that people being able to operate their businesses and having a livelihood is about health as well. So when people ask you, what is that balance? How do we balance a spike in COVID rates that we’re seeing? What is the balance of shutting down, maybe temporarily, some people are suggesting longer, but also balancing the fact that people keeping their businesses open, that that has to do with health as well. How do you answer that tough question of where the balance is?

Patrice:

Well, I think I can answer it better now in [inaudible 00:12:47], than back in April. In April, we didn’t understand very much about the virus. We didn’t understand [inaudible 00:12:54]. Today, we understand that [inaudible 00:12:59] it’s largely airborne and that there are certain populations that are much more vulnerable and so it’s possible for, let’s say a nail salon to be able to open, ensuring that their workers are wearing masks, ensuring that people are either making their customers making appointments in advance, taking their temperatures as they enter, and then social distancing. So creating enough space to be able to operate. Government agencies, can put those types of regulations in place, those guidelines in place to allow a business to operate. But then when you have a spike and you say, “Okay, we’re going to reduce capacity.” There becomes a point where they’re diminishing return.

There are so many customers that are needed for a pizza shop to be able to break even on a given night. So these are the difficult questions that we’ve had to talk about. But I think because we’ve seen the spring and the summer, what’s possible, I think businesses can say, “Yeah, we can absolutely operate. This is what we can invest in our business to be able to allow people to be socially distanced and to operate.” But when you have governments imposing these really draconian measures, [inaudible 00:14:15] just walk it all down. You are telling very many people defiance and what we’ve learned about this virus and how it spreads and how we can mitigate the spread is not true. It needs to be suspended for this amount of time, and you’re not factoring in what that impact has on that business.

Now, something interesting we had, public aid. We had the Paycheck Protection Program, a very popular program where the federal government gave forgivable loans to many small businesses across the country. That program expired, that money ran out, and for those who did receive those loans, that money has already been depleted. So to tell businesses, “Okay, well, you’re on your own and we’re shutting you down.” It’s simply unfair because it’s not so much that the economy shut down by itself, it’s that the government has shut down the economy and businesses can’t operate. I think there’s a very strong push for a new coronavirus stimulus package and putting more money back into that Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses. I understand as long as it’s targeted and temporary and flexible, that’s fine.

But at the end of the day, until customers feel comfortable to come back in until governments release the strong restrictions and lockdown, then there’s no amount of government aid that you can give to a business to keep it open. So that’s why I think we need to make sure our policy leaders really need to make sure that when they’re imposing restrictions, they’re not just doing it because it’s like, “Okay, well, I can’t get a handle. I want to seem I’m doing something. Let me just walk everything down with no regard for the economic impact,” because not only does it hit these small businesses and the workers that they employ, they’re going to hit the government coffers when their revenue declines.

Beverly:

I know. Something I like to say, it’s the people who make the decisions on whether or not to shut down a state are the ones getting consistent paychecks. It’s the people who are being shut down who are fearful and rightly so about what it means economically for them. Final question for you on this. Let’s say we have people who are listening today who are small business owners who are living in some of these states where there have been these draconian measures, what do you recommend they do? Where do they speak out? How do they use their voice to try to put public pressure on their elected officials?

Patrice:

Well, first, as many ways as possible to share their story. Going to their local paper, going together with other small businesses, and saying to the media, “We need you to tell our stories. We need you to tell our stories to the broader population so that people can be aware of what’s happening.” But then also begin to speak out, contacting a member of your representatives is really important for all citizens to be involved in, being able to also use social media to apply that kind of grassroots pressure is very important. I think when we look at California, for example, Governor Gavin Newsom has instituted a couple of new very stringent restrictions on restaurants. He’s cut down the outdoor seatingto I believe 25%. Los Angeles is now saying no more outdoor seating entirely.

So now you’ve got restaurants who are going to have to lay off all of their workers. What needs to happen is you need to number one, call out their own hypocrisy. When the governor is dining with other people, not social distancing, not wearing masks, not doing what he’s telling everyone else to do, and also to tell the story. So when it’s in The L.A. Times, when it’s a front page or a front cover of the website, it’s [inaudible 00:18:04] to recognize just how harmful and damaging it is. I think that’s the kind of pushback that’s needed so that Americans say, “Wait a minute, this is too far.”

Beverly:

Yeah. This is where I think it’s wonderful. We do have the ability through social media. We even have GoFundMe sites to help businesses who are struggling. There is an avenue for us to be able to have our voices heard. I know you help women do that. We so appreciate you coming on Patrice and breaking down the data, which is so important and also giving us that hope for hopefully a strong economy in 2021 as well. But thank you so much for joining us and we’ll talk to you soon.

Patrice:

All right. Thank you.

Beverly:

And thank you for joining us. Before you go, Independent Women’s Forum does want you to know that we rely on the generosity of supporters like you, and investment in IWF fuels our efforts to enhance freedom, opportunity, and wellbeing for all Americans. Please consider making a small donation to IWF by visiting iwf.org\donate. That is iwf.org\donate. And last, if you enjoyed this episode of She Thinks, do leave us a rating or review on iTunes. It does help. Also, we’d love it if you shared this episode and let your friends know where they can find more She Thinks episodes. From all of us here at Independent Women’s Forum, thanks for listening.