In 2000, Congress passed The Equity in Contracting for Women Act of 2000 (Act) to help promote women in business. The Act, which created the Woman’s Procurement Program, allowed contracting agents to award up to 5% of federal contracts to women business owners.
But the SBA responded unfavorably, stalling implementation of the program for years. Then, in December 2007, proposed even tougher standards for women business owners, than existed prior to the Act.
The SBA’s strong position that women are no longer under-represented in business, may have had a backlash affect: Congress appropriated no funding to create new business development centers for women beginning in fiscal year 2009.
Women entrepreneurs are only being awarded 3.3% of all government contracts, but this is not due to a lack of qualifying women-owned businesses. Women now own, or majority own, almost 42% of all privately-held, small businesses (most are sole proprietorships). This low rate of contract awards to women business owners lends itself to justifiable suspicions of discriminatory practices.
But even with so few women getting government contracts, the SBA determined that because of the large number of women in business, they are no longer under-represented in almost all industries. Perhaps Congress felt, if the SBA believed women no longer needed special considerations to succeed, maybe business centers might also be less crucial to their success.
The good news is that the Senate did pass a budget bill to increase The SBA’s 13 million dollar grant budget to 17 million dollars. So for now, it appears that existing 115 centers throughout the United States will remain open.
The SBA has been highly instrumental in helping thousands of women succeed, but ultimately, the praise still belongs to individual women entrepreneurs. Even as we see the SBA’s positive outreach to women changing, the drive and ability women have to succeed over tremendous odds, remains strong.
Sources:
Cyndia Zwahlen. “Women squeezed by SBA's cash crunch.” The LA Times April 14, 2008
Nydia M. Velázquez, Chairwoman. “Administration Contracting Proposal Fails Women Business Owners.” News From the Committee on Small Business December 27, 2007.
