Essay: Sacramento can roar back from the COVID-19 recession if we support small businesses

By Sean Loloee

In the mid-19th century, Sacramento was founded on a promise of prosperity as travelers settled the region with the hope of finding gold. Things have changed a lot since then, but our city’s legacy as a place where everyone has a fair shot at success persists.

Now, as businesses reopen from the latest COVID-19 lockdowns and Californians go back to work, we all have a chance to lead our area to new heights.

When coronavirus was first reported in California last year, the Sacramento region was soaring. Unemployment was near 3%, a historic low. Consumer confidence was through the roof and poverty levels were falling.

COVID-19 changed all that. To keep people safe, state and local governments issued stay-at-home orders to help stop the spread of the virus. While these orders were the right thing to do, they had serious implications. Between December 2019 and December 2020, total jobs in our area decreased by more than 71,000 and many businesses shuttered.

However, as always, the Sacramento area will bounce back. At the start of this year, the region is leading the state in housing and population growth, providing opportunities for our area to thrive once again. And as one of the most diverse and tolerant cities in America, we will all come together to lift each other out of this crisis.

The best way to do that is to support local businesses. We have the opportunity to get our economy back on track for everyone in our community. When we spend money at local retail shops, salons or boutiques, we’re supporting our friends and neighbors.

Many folks are rightly worried about safety as COVID-19 is still a serious threat. However, businesses have reliably followed federal public health guidelines to ensure staff and customers are safe. In addition, the state’s 25% occupancy limit ensures crowds won’t form at any place of business, while retail and other industries are taking every possible precaution to minimize the risk.

It’s important we start rebuilding our local economy now, because the end of the pandemic may be coming soon. Recently, the Biden administration boosted California’s allocation of life-saving vaccines by 16%, and the state revamped its distribution to streamline the process and put shots in arms even faster.

If we all do our part right now to support local businesses, then our communities can start getting back to work and our economy will get back to the historic highs we were seeing before the pandemic.

The last year has been a tough experience for all of us, and we still have a ways to go.

But if we all do our part to keep each other safe and take the vaccines, the summer or fall could start to feel like normal.

If we all do our part right now to support local businesses, then our communities can start getting back to work and our economy will get back to the historic highs we were seeing before the pandemic.

If we do both of these things successfully, we can all get back to enjoying the Sacramento that we knew before.