Newark's Equitable Economic Recovery Plan aims to help small businesses
NEWARK, New Jersey (WABC) -- Newark's latest plan to kick-start their local economy in the wake of the pandemic involves small businesses and addressing racial disparities.
The plan was laid out by Mayor Ras Baraka in a zoom meeting Thursday afternoon.
His "Equitable Economic Recovery Plan is about rebounding from the pandemic but also growing Newark in every positive direction possible for decades to come," Baraka said.
$8.8 million will be used in Newark to get businesses that suffered pandemic losses back on their feet and to help families recover.
Unemployment in the City of Newark shot up to a staggering 19% when COVID-19 forced shutdowns.
A large chunk of that money will come from President Biden's American Rescue Plan.
It is combined with large donations from local corporations like Prudential which has been in Newark since 1875.
It's all part of a plan to make Newark an even better place to work and live.
"People spending their money outside of the City of Newark. There are certain areas where hundreds of millions of dollars, like this section, spend hundreds of millions of dollars outside of the City of Newark in other municipalities because of the lack of business our need to develop more business in the city," Baraka said. "Now when the businesses we do have close, people lose their ability to pay because they lost their job."
Prudential highlighted a barbershop and a phone fix-it businesses and Eyewitness News planned to follow up with those businesses on their recovery.
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