Who gets to decide what economic recovery looks like?

Three ways to build a more equitable recovery

In 2018, Anand Giridharadas rocked the world with his book, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. The book took aim at the global elite who peddle sustainable capitalism and philanthropic impact, yet fail to address the deep structural inequities that enable concentrated wealth.

Fast forward two years. We’re now met with an entirely new world, harshly altered by a global pandemic. From The New York Times to Teen Vogue, experts are sounding the alarm on COVID-19’s exacerbating effects on long-held inequities in the United States and beyond, begging the questions: Who gets to decide what recovery looks like? How will their decisions ultimately determine who “wins” and who “loses” on the other side of the pandemic?

To date, many of the proposed economic solutions are made by the rich and powerful, not those who are most affected. As an example, the initial round of relief loans from the Paycheck Protection Program maintained prerequisites for existing relationships with banks — a challenge for many Black-owned businesses as a result of bias and the effects of historical practices like redlining. Mehrsa Baradaran, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, told NBC News: “Any time you create a big…