Congressional minority caucuses call for data on government spending on contractors

The Congressional Tri-Caucus has called on the Small Business Administration (SBA) to publish a complete version of federal contracting spending data broken down by race and ethnicity.

Chairs of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) led 40 democrats in writing a letter to SBA Administrator Isabel Guzman on Friday demanding data from all federal agencies. 

“In fiscal year 2020, the federal government spent more than $665 billion on contracts,” the letter states. “But minority-owned businesses often struggle to win federal contracts, depriving those companies and communities of billions of dollars in opportunities.”

One study cited in the letter found that had minority-owned businesses received 2020 federal contracting dollars in proportion to their share of the US business sector, they would have received $64 billion more in federal contracts. 

Black-owned businesses would have received an additional $4 billion in contract awards and Hispanic-owned businesses nearly $24 billion more.

The Biden-Harris administration published the data for the first time in December 2021, though the letter calls for SBA to release January 2021 through 2022 to include more than the top five federal agencies. 

But in a response to The Hill on Monday, the SBA pointed out that it does, in fact, break down federal contracting data by race and ethnicity for the full government for 2021 and 2022. 

“As members of Congress, we write to remind your administration of this commitment and reiterate that publishing this data for all federal agencies will help legislators to understand the needs of America’s 33.2 million small businesses while fostering greater economic opportunity for marginalized groups,” the lawmakers wrote. 

Having such data made available, the lawmakers added, would help monitor equity and understanding the disparities minority-owned small businesses face.

The lawmakers are calling for the data to be published by April 30.

Updated at 10:19 a.m. April 23