Magic Johnson is helping small businesses across the country during the coronavirus outbreak.
‘s life insurance company, EquiTrust Life Insurance Co., is helping small businesses owned by women and minority groups secure upwards of $100 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans.
Craig Barritt / Getty Images
The work Johnson’s company is doing is through the Small Business Administration PPP program and is in partnership with MBE Capital Partners.
“We knew why the money was gone and couldn’t trickle down to small businesses, especially small minority businesses, because they didn’t have those great relationships with the banks,” Johnson told the Wall Street Journal. “So this was easy for us to understand.
“This is, when you think about it, life and death for so many business owners. They have nowhere else to turn.”
Johnson has spoken about the COVID-19 outbreak before, comparing it’s impact on minority communities to that of HIV in the 1990s.
“When I think about this virus, it is completely different,” he prefaced to CNN, before continuing. “African Americans are leading in terms of dying from the coronavirus and most of them in the hospital are African American,” Johnson said. “We have to do a better job as African Americans to follow social distancing, stay at home and make sure we educate our loved ones and our family members and do what we’re supposed to do to keep safe and healthy. Then when you add that up, we don’t have access to health care, quality health care. So many of us are uninsured. That also creates a problem, too. Just like it did with HIV and AIDS.”
[Via]
