ERIE, Pa. — It wasn’t a lot when he purchased it, however Michael Hooks has made the previous storage his personal haven. And town of Erie is aware of it. Half a dozen vehicles honk as they cross by one October afternoon, the individuals hanging out of automobile home windows to wave whats up at him.
A few dozen vehicles await servicing within the store as a canine Hooks adopted the day earlier than barks in its new cage. Train gear, bikes and energy instruments abut the kitchen on the facet of the renovated constructing the place his spouse cooks a meal. At 6 toes, 2 inches, and with a sturdy construct, Hooks has a graying beard and a head of curls he says might be laced with snow flurries by this time of 12 months.
“I’ve bought to be one of many solely Black companies on this avenue,” he says, noting that his restore store stands on Peach Avenue, one of many metropolis’s important site visitors arteries. He appreciates the greetings from passersby. However he says many individuals who know him from the neighborhoods the place he grew up won’t ever step foot within the store. Nearly all his prospects are white.
Hooks, 58, is a member of a coveted demographic on this 12 months’s election — a Black man and a enterprise proprietor in a swing state. Each presidential campaigns have focused Black entrepreneurs with their messaging, providing a variety of financial insurance policies and laws that every facet says will increase the careers and lives of African People.
How Erie enterprise house owners and voters resembling Hooks view every candidate’s financial imaginative and prescient may decide management of the White Home. Erie County has gone for the candidate who gained Pennsylvania in each presidential election since 1992. Each Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris have visited town of 94,000 in latest weeks.
“Erie is a pivot level,” mentioned Rhonda Matthews, co-founder of Erie Black Wall Avenue, a enterprise group that helps native Black entrepreneurs. From inhabitants charges to enterprise startups, the way forward for Erie’s financial system and politics have proven the place the nation could also be heading. “I feel if you wish to learn about what’s taking place economically writ giant within the nation, you’ll be able to look and see what’s taking place in Erie.”
Considerations about ‘a scarcity of predictability’
Harris has rolled out a collection of financial proposals meant to sort out affordability and increase small companies. Trump has confused his promise of sweeping tariffs, new company tax cuts and an unprecedented crackdown on unlawful and authorized immigration to the nation.
Small enterprise proprietor Michael Hooks stands within the kitchen of his catering enterprise in Erie, Pa. Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. Credit score: AP/Gene J. Puskar
Native leaders are weighing the affect of every agenda on their plans to resume the Rust Belt.
“An absence of predictability can be the worst potential factor,” mentioned Drew Whiting, CEO of the Erie Downtown Growth Company, which is directing greater than $100 million in non-public funding to the downtown space.
Whiting praised federal insurance policies resembling Certified Alternative Zones, which are supposed to spur financial growth in low-income communities and have been created as a part of the Trump administration’s 2017 tax overhaul, in addition to the investments in Erie enabled by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation spearheaded by Democratic President Joe Biden.
However Whiting added that “broad brush” insurance policies resembling Trump’s proposed 20% tariffs on all overseas items threatened to be “an inflation bomb that will crush small companies” like these he works with. Whiting seen Harris’ proposed investments for small companies to be a possible boon. A no tax on ideas coverage, which each Harris and Trump favor, can be a welcome innovation for staff, he mentioned.
Small enterprise proprietor Michael Hooks stands outdoors his constructing that homes his catering enterprise in Erie, Pa. Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. Credit score: AP/Gene J. Puskar
The Harris marketing campaign has zeroed in on affordability as a key concern of voters amid rising inflation. Her proposals to punish firms that gouge costs and her guarantees to increase help for well being care and little one care are points the place the marketing campaign believes they will decrease prices for working households. Trump, against this, would decrease the company tax charge to fifteen%, prolong his tax cuts and additional reduce different particular person and household taxes, together with by eliminating taxes on Social Safety.
Most mainstream economists agree that Trump’s proposals would worsen inflation.
Native enterprise house owners who spoke with The Related Press expressed cautious optimism about Harris’ proposals to help small companies, although most have been largely skeptical in regards to the affect that federal coverage may have on their lives.
“There’s simply so many components, issues to contemplate from proper right here and international components,” mentioned Gus Paliouras, proprietor of New York Lunch, an area diner. Paliouras’ household immigrated to the US from Greece and acquired the diner in 1970, when it was considered one of dozens of bustling companies on high of a publish workplace, faculty and church. Now Paliouras’ diner is the one storefront left on the block.
“I attempt to maintain it like Geneva in right here,” he mentioned, referring to town in famously impartial Switzerland. “On this city, we may have Trump, Kamala and Kennedy supporters sitting proper subsequent to one another on the bar.” Unbiased Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was within the race till August, when he suspended his marketing campaign and endorsed Trump.
One enterprise proprietor sees his metropolis’s divisions
Hooks considers himself a survivor.
Born and raised in Erie, Hooks grew up in poverty and with few choices, help or course for his life. At 23, he was sentenced to 30 years for dealing marijuana. He served eight years in jail, an expertise he described as “the perfect factor that ever occurred to me.”
Jail was the primary place Hooks was uncovered to scripture — the Bible and Quran — in addition to tales about journey, enterprise and historical past.
Whereas he has remodeled his circumstances and overcome “trials and tribulations that made me a greater man,” he finds the distinctions that some draw between poor, working and middle-class individuals to be meaningless.
“It’s as a result of we have now individuals on this nation that wish to be higher than another person,” he mentioned in a latest interview. “You drive a Toyota Camry, I drive the Lexus. It’s the identical … automobile. It’s only a totally different title, nevertheless it’s the next standing.”
“For instance, (Harris) says she needs to provide us a $50,000 tax break or no matter,” he added, referring to the vice chairman’s proposed tax credit score for brand spanking new small companies. “However that might by no means come into fruition with those that assume they higher than any individual, however you reside subsequent door to me, and your signal says Trump.”
Along with his automobile care firm, Hooks now runs a meals catering enterprise. On the weekends he goes again to the neighborhoods the place he grew as much as feed, dress and reduce hair for youths at no cost. His charity efforts are targeted on ensuring youngsters by no means have the experiences he as soon as confronted.
Hooks is skeptical of the power of politicians to vary elementary issues dealing with on a regular basis People, however says he’ll be voting for Harris.
“Trump had the chance to be nice,” Hooks mentioned, however known as Trump’s first time period a “catastrophe.” Hooks mentioned he most well-liked “going with somebody who might at the very least try to assist the little man.”
