Minority owned businesses have been some of the most challenged during the pandemic, says Alice Rodriguez, managing director at JPMorgan Chase (JPM).

“Minority businesses did not get the same level of support that they perhaps thought they were going to get, from a PPP perspective,” Rodriguez told Yahoo Finance Presents: Hispanic Stars.

Rodriguez has been with JPMorgan Chase for more than 30 years. Last year she was named chair elect for the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

“On the Latino-owned businesses, what you'll see is that we over-index in sectors that have really been hit hard by the pandemic,” said Rodriguez. “Because COVID itself impacted a lot of essential workers in the Latino community.”

A study from the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative of Hispanic-owned businesses show 86% of those surveyed were nervous about the ability to get past the next six months because of the lack of reserves.

“The most hard-hit demographic in the country right now are Latinos. And so it's just presented a lot of different challenges that we're trying to really bucket into different areas so that we can understand what's the best way we can support them,” said Rodriguez.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has warned the pandemic exacerbated income inequalities in the United States. In fact, a recent survey from the Federal Reserve shows that the racial wealth gap changed little since 2016.

“When you look at the median net worth for a Black household, for instance, it's $17,000. For a Latino household, it's $21,000. And for a white household, is $171,000,” said Rodriguez. “ When you start to look at the key drivers of the why behind that, I think that's where we're going to have to really think through, like, how to support our communities best.”

Rodriguez says it is important to support the popular ways which Latinos use to build wealth. Those include owning their own homes and entrepreneurship.

“It’s about first, supporting those key levers that they already used to build wealth, and then figuring out what are the right policies. Do we have the right products so that everybody can take advantage of how you build wealth over time,” said Rodriguez.

She knows the value of setting goals, and building wealth. As the daughter of migrant workers from Mexico, Rodriguez grew up in South Texas and became the first member in her family to graduate from college. She remembers one trip to Chicago as a child, near where her mother and family members were doing temporary migrant jobs.

“My aunt took us to the Sears Tower, the one thing I noticed was that everybody going into that building was dressed up, with a briefcase, all nice. And I had no idea what they did, right? But I just said, that's pretty cool,” said Rodriguez.

“I asked my aunt, how come nobody in our family works at the Sears Tower?,” she recalled.

“I don't think I ever got an answer,” said Rodriguez, who notes she didn’t set out specifically to be a banker.

However that trip left her with the impression “whatever you do, get a job, and you work at a cool place like the Sears Tower. That was my ultimate goal.”

Ines covers the U.S. stock market. Follow her on Twitter at @ines_ferre

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