Listen and subscribe to Financial Freestyle on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. In this episode of Financial Freestyle with Ross Mac, Eric Morrissette, Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Minority Business Development, joins the show to discuss his career journey, the Minority Business Development Agency, and some ways minority businesses can gain access to capital and growth. "The law says that our job and the job of this country is to ensure that free markets and markets that we are supposed to be enjoying are level markets… that everyone has access to those markets. Right now, the truth is, our markets are not level because if a person of color that walks into a financial institution with the same financial statements, the same runs, the same kind of books… they are less likely to access capital at the rate at which their… majority counterpart are. And that means the markets are not working. That means our… markets are not fair. At this point, what people that I’m engaging with every single day are asking me for is equal access. Not a handout. And that’s the job of this agency, and that’s the job of the federal government. Not to put a thumb on the scale, but to remove the thumbs that are already on scales right now," Morrissette explains. "Minority businesses in this country pay more for capital and get less of it," Morrissette says. "We know empirically that they are not getting the same access to federal contracts, state contracts, local contracts, business-to-business contractual opportunities, and the networking opportunities are just different for our communities. They don’t have the same legacies and other things that… other communities enjoy." Morrissette adds that his "goal… as a person who worked on" the Minority Business Development Act "is to address those at [the] core." "I’ve gone around the country and I’ve said the same thing, ‘ask me to do hard things,’" Morrissette notes. "That’s the fundamental of this job, but also the job of all those federal employees, but also all those business centers. They’ve got to do hard things to help minority businesses succeed. We’ve got to do more to share the opportunities that exist… for entrepreneurs. It’s a hard thing to run something… We’ve got to be out there finding them. Letting them know that we’re here to serve and support them." Financial Freestyle with Ross Mac on Yahoo Finance is dedicated to promoting economic prosperity for all. Through expert insights, practical advice, and inspiring success stories, we empower you to build and grow wealth.
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