American Express. The 2019 State of Women Businesses (2023).
While the ABS imputes race, ethnicity, sex, and veteran status, it does not impute missing other owner and business characteristics such as age; therefore, percentages are representative of weighted responses but not representative of all U.S. employer businesses or owners.
U. S. Census Bureau, 2021 Annual Business Survey, data year 2020 and 2020 Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics (NES-D), http://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/abs/data.html.
Pierre Azoulay, Benjamin F. Jones, J. Daniel Kim, Javier Miranda, Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship, 2 Am. Econ. Rev.: Insights 65 (March 2020), https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aeri.20180582.
Legal Form of Organization is not currently available for employer businesses in the Annual Business Survey.
Businesses in this sector include automotive repair and maintenance, personal and laundry services, religious, grantmaking, civic, professional, and similar organizations, and private households. Please see the North American Industry Classification System for more details on sector 81. U.S Census Bureau, North American Industry Classification System (Nov. 15, 2024), https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=81&year=2017.
The author's methodology description is as follows: "For the national level analysis, we collected three-digit NAICS data on the number of female STEM entrepreneurs at the national level for the years 2012-2020 from various sources. For employer firms we used the Survey of Business Owners (SBO), Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB), Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs (ASE), and the Annual Business Survey (ABS). For nonemployer firms, we used Nonemployer Statistics by Demographic series (NES-D), and Nonemployer Statistics (NES) Tables. We massaged this data to put it in a form for econometric analyses, and for the years where this data was not available by sex or available at the two-digit level, we developed estimates based on data from appropriate years. We gathered data on factors that could influence the number of female STEM entrepreneurs, such as national level female patentee data from U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) PatentsView Annualized Data Tables, national venture funding for female-founded firms from PitchBook's Female Founders Dashboard, interest rate data from the Federal Reserve, national-level employment data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), national women STEM graduates' data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Digest of Education Statistics, and national per-capita income data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). We used a national level log-log model to study the relationships between these factors (independent or explanatory variables), including a dummy variable for COVID-19, and the number of female STEM entrepreneurs (dependent variable). We used this model because it is typically used in modeling growth, and it shows the percent changes in the dependent variable due to a percent change in an independent variable. We found that the model captured a high percent of variation in the dependent variable, the model fit the data well, and the model explained the effects of changes in independent variables such as women patentees, venture capital funding on the dependent variable etc., reasonably well."
Michelle Saksena, Nicholas Rada, Lisa Cook, Where are U.S. women patentees? Assessing three decades of growth 1-2, 5-7, Office of the Chief Economist, USPTO and the Office of Policy and International Affairs (Oct. 2022), https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/oce-women-patentees-report.pdf.
Amanda B. Elam, Benjamin S. Baumer, Thomas Schott, Mahsa Samsami, Amit Kumar Dwivedi, Rico J. Baldegger, Maribel Guerrero, Fatima Boutaleb, and Karen D. Hughes, GEM 2021/22 Women’s Entrepreneurship Report: From Crisis to Opportunity, 2021/2022 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 53, 112-113 (2022), https://www.gemconsortium.org/report/gem202122-womens-entrepreneurship-report-from-crisis-to-opportunity.
The author’s methodology description is as follows: “Researchers hired local women from 11 different areas around the country to conduct a total of 100 structured interviews with women entrepreneurs (n = 92) to learn about women’s experiences and perceptions of: 1) business education and training; 2) mentorship and networks; 3) financing and access to resources; 4) what entrepreneurship meant to them; 5) knowledge and utilization of existing resources; and 6) regionally or Tribally specific questions—authored by the local interviewer/community member. Further, eight governance leaders from these areas were also interviewed to learn more about: 1) the local communities’ environment; 2) local programs that support entrepreneurship; 3) awareness and access to state and federal programs; and 4) the general state of women-owned small businesses in their community. The sampled areas were (number of women entrepreneurs; number of governance leaders):
UN Women, Facts and Figures: Economic Empowerment (Feb. 2024)https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/economic-empowerment/facts-and-figures.
KDR Communications LLC, Research Report: Strategic Communication Plan and Support for National Women’s Business Council (Oct. 5, 2023), on file with author (hereinafter KDR Communications’s Research Report).
Lori Henson, Federal government advertising spending has doubled to $1.8 billion since 2018, Rebuild Local News (Aug. 29, 2024) https://www.rebuildlocalnews.org/federal-government-advertising-spending-has-doubled-to-1-8-billion since-2018/#:~:text=Federal%20government%20agencies%20in%20the%20United%20States%20spent,response%2C%20 inflation%2C%20and%20increased%20efforts%20around%20military%20recruitment.
According to Forrester’s Customer Experience Index, the federal average for customer experience is nearly 11 percentage points behind the private sector average and lower than any other industry or sector surveyed. Deloitte, 2023 Government Marketing Trends Report (2023), https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/public-sector/US_AMC_2023_Gov_Marketing_Trends_report.pdf.
As further support, KDR Communications’s Research Report, supra n. 12, states, “Tailoring communication methods to each audience’s preferences and focusing on providing valuable, relevant content may help address the identified gaps in brand visibility and reputation.”
Equity in Infrastructure Project, Innovations from the Field: Using Certification Reciprocity to Increase Contracting Opportunities for HUBs Across State Lines (Nov. 2022), https://equityininfrastructure.org/sites/default/files/cs/2022-11/FINAL_EIP%20Brief%201_CTA%20SEPTA%20SBE%20Certification%20Reciprocity_11.15.22.pdf.
Provisions included in Appendix I, Title VIII, Section 811 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2001, Pub. L. No. 106 554, 114 STAT. 2763 (Dec. 21, 2001).
These are the National Women’s Business Owners Corporation, Women’s Enterprise National Council, the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce, and the El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. U.S. Small Business Administration, WOSB Federal Contract program assistance: SBA-approved third-party certification (July 2, 2024), https://www.sba.gov/federal-contracting/contracting-assistance-programs/women-owned-small-business-federal-contract-program#id-get-certified-as-a-wosb.
U.S. Government Accountability Office, A snapshot of government-wide contracting for FY 2023 (interactive dashboard) (June 25, 2024), https://www.gao.gov/blog/snapshot-government-wide-contracting-fy-2023-interactive-dashboard.
White House, Building on the Biden-Harris Small Business Boom (April 2024), https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Small-Business-Boom-Report-2024.pdf.
National Women’s Business Council, Reimagining Access: Transforming Government Funding Practices (Roundtable Event Recap) (July 25, 2024), https://www.nwbc.gov/events/july-2024-roundtable/.
National Council of Nonprofits, Significant Improvements to Federal Grants Rules Proposed: Longstanding Nonprofit Concerns Addressed (Nov. 20, 2023), https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/files/media/documents/2023/initial-analysis-of-omb-uniform-guidance-reforms-2023.pdf; Health Resources & Services Administration, Dept. of Health and Human Services, Simpler NOFOs Pilot (Jan. 2024), https://www.hrsa.gov/grants/simpler-nofos; Jeff Hild, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, ACF has simplified our Notices of Funding Opportunities, Administration for Children & Families, Dept. of Health and Human Services (March 26, 2024), https://www.acf.hhs.gov/blog/2024/03/acf-has-simplified-our-notices-funding-opportunities.
For example, a 2020 NWBC publication noted that WOSBs received just 13% of SBIR awards – federal grants to support small business development of emerging technologies – in the then most-recent year. National Women’s Business Council, America’s Seed Fund: Women’s Inclusion in Small Business Innovation Research & Small Business Technology Transfers Programs (Oct. 28, 2020), https://www.nwbc.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Final-Infographic_10.28.2020.pdf.
E.g., Scott Jaschik, What the Common App Does, Inside Higher Ed (Aug. 25, 2019), https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2019/08/26/study-finds-generally-positive-impact-common-application; Brian Knight, Nathan Schiff, Reducing Frictions in College Admissions: Evidence from the Common Application, 14 AM. Econ. J.: Econ. Pol’y 179 (Feb. 2022), https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20190694.
Lirone Glikman, Kara McIntyre (Ed.), Studies Show Women Need Each Other’s Support to Reach Maximum Success – and I’ve Experienced This Firsthand. Here’s How, Entrepreneur (May 9, 2024), https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/studies-show-women-need-each-others-support-to-reach/472328.
U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Office of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI) (2024), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_omwi-interagency-handout_2024.pdf.
Brendan Cosgrove, Philip Gaskin, Thom Goff, Erin Kenney, Jessica Milli, Hyacinth Vassell, Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs: Removing Barriers, 7, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (2023), https://www.kauffman.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Access-to-Capital-for-Entrepreneurs-Report-2-June-2023.pdf.
Center for Business Empowerment, Bank of America, Factors that impact loan decisions (and how to increase your approval odds) (Feb. 13, 2024), https://business.bankofamerica.com/resources/factors-that-impact-loan-decisions-and-how-to-increase-your-approval-odds.html.
E.g., Rohit Arora, Women-Owned Businesses Thrived in 2022, Forbes (March 8, 2023), https://www.forbes.com/sites/rohitarora/2023/03/08/women-owned-businesses-thrived-in-2022/ (describing Biz2Credit 2023 survey finding average age of women-owned businesses to be 9 months younger than male-owned firms).
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, MO, “The gender wealth gap is considerably larger than the gender wage gap. Families headed by women have just 55 cents in median wealth for every dollar of wealth owned by families headed by men.” Ana Hernández Kent, Gender Wealth Gaps in the U.S. and Benefits of Closing Them, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (Sept. 29, 2021) (citing Ana Hernández Kent, Lowell R. Ricketts, Gender Wealth Gap: Families Headed by Women Have Lower Wealth, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (Jan. 12, 2021), https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/in-the-balance/2021/gender-wealth-gap-families-women-lower-wealth).
Chirs Wheat, Chi Mac, Did the Paycheck Protection Program Support Small Business Activity?, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (December 2021), https://www.jpmorganchase.com/content/dam/jpmc/jpmorgan-chase-and-co/institute/pdf/institute-ppp-research-brief.pdf.
David Autor, David Cho, Leland D. Crane, Mita Goldar, Byron Lutz, Joshua Montes, William B. Peterman, David Ratner, Daniel Villar, and Ahu Yildirmaz, The $800 Billion Paycheck Protection Program: Where Did the Money Go and Why Did It Go There?, 36 J. of Econ. Perspectives 55 (Spring 2022), https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.36.2.55 (hereinafter The $800 Billion Paycheck Protection Program).
Neil Bradley, Jeanette Mulvey, How the Small Business Sector Has Grown Throughout the Pandemic, U.S. Chamber of Commerce (October 21, 2021) https://www.uschamber.com/on-demand/economy/how-the-small-business-sector-has-grown-throughout-the-pandemic.
Katie Abouzahr, Matt Krentz, John Harthorne, and Frances Brooks Taplett, Why Women-Owned Startups Are a Better Bet, Boston Consulting Group (June 06, 2018), https://www.bcg.com/publications/2018/why-women-owned-startups-are-better-bet.
Lylah Davies, Empowering women as clean energy entrepreneurs, OECD Environment Directorate (April 14, 2020), https://oecd-environment-focus.blog/2020/04/14/empowering-women-as-clean-energy-entrepreneurs/; Katerina Kuschel, Kerstin Ettl, Cristina Díaz-García, Gry Agnete Alsos, Stemming the gender gap in STEM entrepreneurship – insights into women’s entrepreneurship in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, 16 Int’l Entrepreneurship & Management J. 1 (March 2020), https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11365-020-00642-5.
Jane Muir, Megan Aanstoos, Tamsen Barrett, Almesha Campbell, Forough Ghahramani, Jennifer Gottwald, Kirsten Leute, Nichole Mercier, Jennifer Shockro, Engaging More Women in Academic Innovation: Findings and Recommendations, 22 Technology & Innovation 273 (December 2022), https://doi.org/10.21300/22.3.2022.2.
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Interagency Statement on Special Purpose Credit Programs Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Regulation B (February 22, 2022), https://www.fdic.gov/news/financial-institution-letters/2022/fil22008.html.
E.g., Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Alternative Credit Assessment Workstream (July 01, 2022), https://www.occ.gov/topics/consumers-and-communities/project-reach/alternative-credit-assessment-workstream.html (noting Treasury Department offices working on expanding access to credit have developed measures that draw on “permissioned deposit account data”).
We learned in conversations with representatives of the Office of the Comptroller of Currency and attendees of its Project REACh Summit in May 2024 that banks participating in alternative credit assessment experiments had obtained generally positive repayment results over an as-yet short term of operation, and were open to expanded use to serve more customers.
E.g., Jun Zhu, Daniel Pang, John Walsh, Aniket Mehrotra, Jung Choi, Janneke Ratcliffe, Christina Baird, Hayley Kaplan, Rachel Marconi, Wesley Jenkins, The Special Purpose Credit Program Data Toolkit, National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), Housing Finance Policy Center at Urban Institute (January 17, 2024), https://www.urban.org/projects/special-purpose-credit-program-data-toolkit (stating, “When implemented effectively, SPCPs can build wealth, reduce housing segregation, and help close the racial homeownership gap.”).
E.g., American Bankers Association, Eastern Bank Case Study, https://www.aba.com/banking-topics/commercial-banking/small-business/special-purpose-credit-programs/case-study/eastern-bank.
For example, a World Bank study affirmed that, “Access to formal financial services allows people to make financial transactions more efficiently and safely and helps poor people climb out of poverty by making it possible to invest in education and business. By providing ways to manage income shocks like unemployment or the loss of a breadwinner, financial inclusion can also prevent people from falling into poverty in the first place.” Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Leora Klapper, Dorothe Singer, Financial Inclusion and Inclusive Growth: A Review of Recent Empirical Evidence, World Bank Group (April 2017), https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/403611493134249446/pdf/WPS8040.pdf.
“In the face of these capacity constraints, banks appear to have prioritized firms with which they had a preexisting relationship (Amiram and Rabetti 2020; Cororaton and Rosen 2021; Joaquim and Netto 2021; Granja et al. 2020; Li and Strahan, 2020). Larger firms, which tend to have ongoing banking relationships, accessed PPP funds sooner than smaller firms on average.” The $800 Billion Paycheck Protection Program, supra n. 32.
Sarah Ewall-Wice, The child care crisis is costing the economy $122 billion a year, new study finds – and it’s not just hurting families, businesses and taxpayers are taking a hit, CBS News (February 7, 2023), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lack-of-child-care-costs-economy-122-billion-dollars-parents-businesses-taxpayers-study/.
Josh Boak and The Associated Press, Investment in child care creates a ‘robust labor force,’ reduces crime and delivers outsized returns, according to a new White House report, Fortune (March 20, 2023), https://fortune.com/2023/03/20/child-care-government-investment-report-labor-force-economic-growth-reduce-crime/.
U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, Kaine & Britt Introduce Bold Bipartisan Proposal to Make Child Care More Affordable (July 31, 2024), https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-releases/kaine-and-britt-introduce-bold-bipartisan-proposal-to-make-child-care-more-affordable.
Caitlin Yilek, Rep. Nancy Mace warns of “staggering” challenges Congress faces as U.S. heads toward “child care cliff,” CBS News (August 27, 2023), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nancy-mace-ro-khanna-child-care-funding-face-the-nation/.
Allie Schneider, Erin Grant, Shira Davidson, Federal Child Care Legislation Over the Past Decade, American Progress CAP 20 (June 21, 2023), https://www.americanprogress.org/article/federal-child-care-legislation-over-the-past-decade/.
Convergence Collaborative on Supports for Working Families, In This Together: A Cross-Partisan Action Plan to Support Families with Young Children in America (2023-2024), https://convergencepolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Convergence-Collaborative-on-Supports-for-Working-Families-Blueprint-for-Action.pdf.
U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship, Cardin Leads Introduction of Legislation to Reauthorize & Improve Women’s Business Center Program (September 15, 2022), https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2022/9/cardin-leads-introduction-of-legislation-to-reauthorize-improve-women-s-business-center-program#:~:text=WBCs%20served%20more%20than%2088%2C000%20clients%20in%202021%2C,increase%20from%20the%2064%2C000%20c.
U.S. Small Business Administration, SBA Announces $30 Million in Grant Funding for New Women’s Business Centers (June 11, 2024), https://www.sba.gov/article/2024/06/11/sba-announces-30-million-grant-funding-new-womens-business-centers.
Office of Entrepreneurial Development, U.S. Small Business Administration, SBA Launches Largest Expansion of Women’s Business Centers in 30 Years (January 4, 2021), https://www.sba.gov/article/2021/jan/04/sba-launches-largest-expansion-womens-business-centers-30-years.
Kapur Energy Environment Economics, LLC, An Illuminating Moment: Lighting a Pathway for Women STEM Entrepreneurs, National Women’s Business Council (Dec. 2023), https://www.nwbc.gov/research-data/womens-stem-entrepreneurship/.
E.g., Wells Fargo, Ventureneer, CoreWoman, WIPP Education Institute, The 2024 Impact of Women-Owned Businesses (Jan. 2024), https://www.wippeducationinstitute.org/_files/ugd/5cba3e_96b999d23fb04d8eb488192a179781d4.pdf.
Alex Bell, Raj Chetty, Xavier Jaravel, Neviana Petkova, John Van Reenen, Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation (November 2018), http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/assets/documents/inventors_paper.pdf [asserting, “Girls are more likely to invent in a particular class if they grow up in an area with more women (but not men) who invent in that class.”].
Stacy Mitchell, Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business, Institute for Local Self-Reliance (Aug. 10, 2016), https://ilsr.org/articles/monopoly-power-and-the-decline-of-small-business/.
For example, as far back as 2008, an Aspen Institute-led panel of experts, including public sector representatives, recommended including entrepreneurship skills in educational standards, and expanding funding for instruction. Aspen Youth Entrepreneurship Strategy Group, Youth Entrepreneurship Education in America: A Policymaker’s Action Guide (2008), https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED508224.pdf#:~:text=Introduce%20entrepreneurship%20training%20in%20all%20schools,%20with%20special%20emphasis%20on.
Taylor R. Knoedl, The Federal Statistical System: An Overview, Congressional Research Service (Aug. 19, 2024), https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R48161 (hereinafter Federal Statistical System).
American Statistical Association, Count on Stats (2024), https://www.amstat.org/policy-and-advocacy/count-on-stats.
U.S. Department of Commerce, Spotlight on Commerce’s key economic data (2024),https://performance.commerce.gov/stories/s/c36u-jyd9.
dfusion Inc., Literature Review Documenting Current Research on Women’s Entrepreneurship in Rural, Tribal, and Underserved Communities at 58, 85, National Women’s Business Council (Jan. 2024), https://www.nwbc.gov/research-data/literature-review-womens-entrepreneurship-in-rural-tribal-and-underserved-communities/.
Federal Statistical System, supra n. 61.