by Michael Bustamante

With 2021 now in the rear-view mirror, the collective hope is that the new year will bring about much needed positive change, particularly among the Latino community. The data clearly underscores how significantly the Coronavirus wreaked havoc on the Latino community. According to the Centers for Disease Control, Hispanics and Latinos were 1.7 times more likely to contract COVID-19 than our non-Hispanic white counterparts, as well as 4.1 times more likely to be hospitalized from COVID-19 and, sadly, 2.8 times more likely to die from COVID-19.

Thankfully we have the tools to correct some of these horrendous pandemic statistics. However, there is another challenge to the Latino community that is brewing in the United States Congress that can have an equally devastating impact on the livelihoods of tens of thousands of Latino-owned businesses in California and across the country.

For the past several months members of Congress have been working on a package of five anti-trust bills that seek to regulate many aspects of the technology sector’s ability to operate in and drive America’s economy. Taken together, members of the California Congressional delegation – the nation’s largest – should not lose site of the fact that any regulation targeting the biggest global tech companies, most headquartered in the Golden State, will undoubtedly spill over and impact small, minority- and women-owned businesses.

For small business owners, particularly those owned by Latino, African American and Asian businesses owners, technology options represented a lifeline that enabled us to keep the doors open during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today these businesses, and the consumers who shop at them, rely more and more on the digital tools they invested in to keep the lights on to continue to serve customers than they did pre-pandemic.

As one of the few organizations focused on issues of importance to Latino consumers, the Latino Consumer Federation is legitimately concerned about the package of bills pending before the House of Representatives – H.R. 3826, H.R. 3849, H.R. 3816, and H.R. 3825. California consumers as a whole should be leery about the package of these technology bills that look to enact so-called tech “reforms” from folks who generally have a hard time trying to figure out the difference between an HDMI cable and a mouse.

In California, nearly 2 million people are employed by the technology sector, resulting in an economic impact of more than $520 billion annually to California’s economy. For small business owners, particularly those in southern California owned by Latino, African American and Asian businesses owners, technology options were a lifeline that enabled them to keep their businesses open during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For workers and consumers, the “package” could have the chilling effect of suppressing wage growth and negatively impacting consumers. For example, H.R. 3816, the American Choice and Innovation Online Act, would result in separate rules for online marketplaces compared to those governing brick and mortar businesses. The end result will create a highly inequitable landscape for small businesses, especially for African American, Latino, veteran and women owned small businesses already struggling.

These kinds of life-altering impacts, on the heels of what has transpired the past two years due to COVID, is troubling. The potential unintended impacts could deliver a critical blow to Latino business owners and consumers that are unwarranted and unnecessary. Enacting smart policy solutions that serve to strengthen, not weaken, California’s ability to innovate and lead in the technology marketplace, particularly during such uncertain times makes sense for workers, consumers and businesses.

Passing the package of tech “reforms” may only serve to exacerbate the struggles that many of us have seen the past two years and prolong the Latino community’s ability to have a better year.

Michael Bustamante is president and founder of the Latino Consumer Federation, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement and empowerment of the Latino community and its growing consumer base.