The cost of Halting the hustle

This is not a story of crime. It’s a story of adaptation.

The Roots of Economic Exclusion

For generations, Black Americans have faced systemic barriers to economic mobility: redlining, discriminatory lending, wage theft, and job exclusion among them. For example, between 1934 and1968, less than 2% of all FHA home loans went to Black families. Currently the median Black household holding roughly 1/8 the wealth of the median white household.

In the absence of access to capital and ownership, many turned inward, creating underground systems of trade, mutual aid, and hustle that mirrored the legitimate economy but operated outside its gatekeepers.

Street vending, unlicensed taxi driving, hair braiding, informal childcare, and unregulated street markets all became forms of economic resistance like the informal economy of Harlem in the 1970s, or the role of barbershops, corner stores, and local “numbers” games in Black urban communities.

The Fine Line Between Enterprise and Crime

The same ingenuity that could have built corporations was often criminalized when it came from Black neighborhoods. What was praised as “entrepreneurial spirit” in one context was condemned as “hustling” in another.

Selling goods without a permit, repairing cars from one’s yard, or running informal credit systems. All of these practices filled gaps left by the state and the market. Yet they also exposed participants to police harassment, fines, and incarceration.

The United States is unparalleled historically and ranks among the highest worldwide in its dependence on incarceration. Over five million people in total are under supervision by the criminal legal system. Of these, nearly two million people, disproportionately Black, are living in prisons and jails instead of their communities. Compare this to the figures of the early 1970s when this count was 360,000. This contradiction sits at the heart of America’s racial economy: the same country that glorifies bootstrapping often punishes those who actually do it under constraint.

Informal Economies as Community Infrastructure

Despite the risks, these underground networks have long served as engines of community stability. Money stayed local, circulating through neighborhood barbers, babysitters, street vendors, and handymen.

Studies show the informal economy contributes billions to urban GDPs, with estimates suggesting it generates as much as 25-50% of non-agricultural GDP in many cities in the global South. Research highlights its significant role in employment, with informal workers sometimes making up 50-80% of urban employment in these regions and creating job opportunities that stimulate local economies. Despite these large contributions, informal workers are often excluded from services and support systems.

In many cases, these networks became the foundation for formal entrepreneurship. Hip-hop’s rise from street culture to a global industry is one example; the neighborhood corner hustler who becomes a small business owner is another.

What outsiders call the “hustle” is, for many, a cultural inheritance. A system of self-determination forged in scarcity.

The Cost of Survival

Still, survival economies come with heavy tolls. The constant threat of arrest, financial instability, and physical danger wears down even the most resilient. For every story of a street entrepreneur turned mogul, there are countless others lost to incarceration or violence.

The effect of prison is especially pronounced: a 52% reduction in annual earnings and little earnings growth for the rest of their lives, amounting to a loss of $500,000 over several decades. Even a minor crime, such as shoplifting can reduce earnings by 16% annually. Many people swept up in the criminal justice system already live on the edge of poverty. The reduced earning potential of a conviction can mean the difference between economic stability and inescapable poverty.

This cycle of systemic exclusion leading to informal economies, which in turn invite criminalization reveals how poverty is often punished rather than solved.

Reclaiming the Narrative

It’s time to shift how we frame “illegal” economies in Black communities. These systems aren’t evidence of moral failure they’re proof of economic creativity in the face of exclusion.

Community-based cooperatives, local investment funds, and restorative justice programs are showing new paths forward. New community wealth-building models are popping up in cities like Atlanta, Detroit, and Baltimore. When given fair access to capital and ownership, the same people once criminalized for “hustling” become builders of legitimate wealth. These same people can be our employers, innovators, and cultural leaders.

The Blueprint for Economic Liberation

To build sustainable futures, we must recognize informal economies as part of a broader economic ecosystem not as threats, but as opportunities for inclusion and transformation. That means reforming policies that criminalize poverty, expanding access to microloans and entrepreneurship training, and investing in communities long denied fair participation in the formal economy.

What was once called “the hustle” might just be the blueprint for liberation, proof that even under pressure, Black communities create, organize, and survive with brilliance the system could never suppress.