White House marks small business week, touting its record

The White House specifically pointed to two figures it said were record-highs: 17.2 new business applications during President Joe Biden’s time in office and $178.6 billion in federal contracting dollars awarded to small businesses last fiscal year. 

“The president has really tasked the administration with increasing the share of our federal contracts to put our values where our dollars are – to make sure that more of those contracts are going to small businesses,” Michael Negron, an assistant to the president for economic policy said in an interview with Spectrum News on Monday. 

The White House noted $76.2 billion in federal contracting dollars went to small disadvantaged businesses in particular and $32 billion went to service-disabled veteran owned small businesses. Biden has set a goal to increase the amount of federal contracting dollars awarded to small disadvantaged businesses by 50% by 2025. 

Monday’s report also found that the Small Businesses Administration is on track to nearly double the number of small dollar loans approved compared to the last year of former President Donald Trump’s presidency. The White House cited a survey indicating a majority of small businesses owners seek loans of less than $100,000. 

Florida-based Yanet Herrero, the chief executive officer of a commercial cleaning business, Kings Service Solutions, told Spectrum News on Monday that the small business association loan she received was “integral” to expanding her business. 

“SBA was an integral part of growing our business,” Herrero, who said she received $3 million in funds, said. 

“We just received in 2023 a first 504 loan for the SBA so we were able to purchase our headquarters,” she said. “So we were able to to purchase our headquarters and now we’re able to have a place in our community where our employees can come in and apply for those jobs and also get assistance in training in our organization.”

Herrero, a Cuban American entrepreneur, was honored by the administration as the Florida small business person of the year in Washington on Monday.