Study: Black-Owned Businesses Continue to Grow in Cincinnati

An updated study conducted by the Alpaugh Family Economics Center at the University of Cincinnati shows that Black-owned businesses are steadily increasing, bringing billions in economic activity to the region. In partnership with UC, the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky African American Chamber of Commerce (AACC) conducted a study in an eight-county region of Greater Cincinnati to examine the economic and fiscal impact of Black-owned businesses in 2023. The report was a continuation of a 2021 study released in 2022 that was the nation’s first study to quantify Chamber of Commerce data about Black-owned businesses. “Business ownership provides an opportunity to build wealth for Black or African American individuals,” the latest study report reads. “Such an opportunity is particularly significant for Black or African American families, whose median net worth of $24,100 was 7.8 times lower than the median net worth of white families in 2019.” Data was collected from several online Black-owned business directories as well as through survey data collection to develop a database of 1,417 Black-owned businesses in Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky. According to the study, in 2023, Black-owned businesses in the Cincinnati region: Created a total of $2.8 billion in sales, supporting 16,472 jobs with...