The Math Problem Stymieing Small Businesses in Rural America
Low valuations and a lack of recent comparable sales affect both commercial and residential appraisals, with spillover effects for local businesses. They make it tough for rural entrepreneurs to tap home equity, a common form of startup financing, or use their homes as collateral for a small-business loan. They also create roadblocks for developers seeking to build new homes to retain and attract new residents and hamper wealth-building in rural areas.
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WSJ: The Math Problem Stymieing Small Businesses in Rural America
About the Author
Ruth Simon is a New York-based reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where she covers small business and entrepreneurship. She has previously covered consumer lending, mortgages and housing, and reported for WSJ’s Personal Journal and Money & Investing sections.
Ms. Simon won a 2019 Best in Business Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for her coverage of the impact of the labor squeeze on small business. She was part of a WSJ team that received a 2021 New York Press Club award for spot news coverage of the Paycheck Protection Program rollout.
Before joining the Journal, Ms. Simon worked for Money magazine and Forbes Magazine.
Ms. Simon was part of a WSJ team that received a SABEW honorable mention for economics coverage in 2020 and, with other WSJ reporters, was a finalist for two Gerald Loeb Awards for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism in 2021, in the categories of explanatory journalism and breaking news. She was also part of a team that was a finalist for a 2014 SABEW award for small business coverage as well as teams that won a one-time National Press Foundation award for coverage of the 2013 federal government shutdown and a Distinguished Business Reporting award in 2008 from the New York Newspaper Publishers Association for a package of stories on the subprime mortgage crisis. In 1995, she won the Award for Excellence in Financial Writing from the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants. In 1994, she was a finalist in both the Loeb Awards and in the Deadline Club Awards from the New York City Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. In 1996, she was a contributor to “The Money Book of Personal Finance.”