small business week has me wondering: is my father’s path still viable?
This Small Business Week, I’m reflecting on how my father's journey embodies both the promises and pitfalls of late-stage capitalism. He experienced a version of the American Dream that is increasingly unattainable.
Arriving in Minnesota from India in 1975, my dad’s first gig was selling imports as a traveling salesman. In 1980, he started as an assistant manager at a Burger King. Through a mix of hard work and good fortune, he climbed the corporate ladder, eventually managing multiple restaurants. In the early 1990s, opportunities for small franchise ownership at Burger King opened up. For a modest purchase price and with a bank loan backed by the franchisor, my father acquired two restaurants. Over three decades, he owned and operated dozens of restaurants in several states. Along the way, he tried to help his staff build credit, economic mobility, and financial security. He implemented profit sharing, offered non-predatory paycheck advances, hired from prison release programs, and served as the mortgage lender for employees who couldn’t get traditional home loans.
The access to affordable capital and the chance to start small transformed our family’s financial future. Unfortunately, our family’s story wouldn’t be possible today. Burger King wouldn’t let my father sell his restaurants to his managers as he had hoped. They forced him to sell to a private equity firm under their single-buyer mandate.
Inspired by my father’s story, I am working to understand and counteract the forces that concentrate wealth into fewer and fewer hands.
How can we improve access to affordable capital to Black and other underrepresented entrepreneurs, especially in this “anti-DEI” climate?
What policies can we implement to level the playing field and protect small businesses from monopolies and duopolies that stifle competition?
In what ways can individuals shift their savings and investments away from Wall Street to Main Street to achieve both financial and social returns?
What strategies can we use to bolster solidarity economy initiatives, such as worker cooperatives and local investment funds, which prioritize shared prosperity over profit maximization?
-Pooja Mehta
