Black-owned firms booming

When she took over her late mother's soul food restaurant five years ago, Rosalind Cazares kept alive one of Salt Lake City's first black-owned restaurants.

Cazares admits entrepreneurship isn't easy, even with her experience as a florist.

"It's always taking a risk and faith in God," she said.

Cazares is among those surprised by a new census report that identifies black-owned businesses as outpacing the business growth of every other minority group in Utah's economy from 1997 to 2002.

There were 649 black-owned businesses in Utah in 2002, up 47.5 percent since 1997, according to the "2002 Survey of Business Owners: Black-Owned Firms." And receipts from those firms grew by more than 700 percent over five years, to nearly $188 million, according to the report released Tuesday.

However, Utah mirrored a national trend of mostly small businesses. Only 11 percent of Utah's black-owned businesses had paid employees. Utah's average is 25 percent.

The report, part of the 2002 Economic Census, is based on administrative records and a survey of 2.4 million businesses. It includes privately held nonfarm firms with at least 51 percent black ownership.

In Utah, black-owned firms showed the fastest growth rate of any minority and outpaced Utah's overall growth rate of 14.1 percent, said Robert Spendlove, manager of demographic and economic analysis for the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget.

However, Spendlove cautioned that while the census report shows a general trend of growth, it is based on survey data — and for Utah's small population, there was a large margin of error. And, even if the census count is accurate, Utah has some catching up to do.

"Black-owned businesses make up about 0.3 percent of all firms in Utah," Spendlove said. "The black population is 0.9 percent of Utah's population."

Nationally, black-owned businesses grew by 45 percent to 1.2 million black-owned firms in 2002, accounting for $88.8 billion in revenue.

"I'm proud," said Harry Alford, president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. "We're the fastest-growing segment."

Alford said black entrepreneurs have been helped by improved education levels and increased incomes among black consumers and business owners.

Blacks, as a group, still trail whites in education and income, but they have made gains in the past half-century. In 1950, only 14 percent of black adults had high school diplomas, compared with 36 percent of whites, according to the Census Bureau. The gap narrowed by 2000, when 72 percent of black adults had at least a high school diploma, compared with 84 percent of whites.

"We've got the first generation of significantly educated people," Alford said. "There's a black middle class like never before."