The number of small businesses receiving federal contracts continued a sharp and years-long decline in 2022 despite a record-breaking $159 billion awarded to small businesses throughout the year, according to a new report.
The increasing popularity of “best-in-class” contracts and other vehicles that consolidate contracting opportunities hampered small business participation in the federal marketplace last year, the government contracting market intelligence platform HigherGov said in a report published on Monday.
“Small businesses are critical engines of technological development in the United States,” Justin Siken, founder of HigherGov, said in a statement. “As the number of small businesses participating in the federal market has shrunk dramatically over the past decade, the government increasingly risks losing access to emerging technology and ideas.”
In total, just under 60,000 small businesses received federal contracts in fiscal year 2022. That’s less than half the total number of small businesses that received contracts from the federal government in 2010, roughly 121,270.
The report also suggested that expanding cybersecurity requirements, new regulations and a failure to effectively increase diversity among small business contract awards has contributed to the decline in small business participation in the federal marketplace.
Though the total dollars awarded to women-owned, Black-owned and Hispanic-owned small businesses increased last year, President Joe Biden sought to expand the actual number of minority-owned small businesses participating in the federal marketplace through a series of executive orders and reforms.
Those contracting equity goals didn’t take hold for fiscal year 2022, according to the research, which showed decreasing and stagnating total awards for minority-owned businesses. The number of women-owned small businesses that received prime contract awards in 2022 fell slightly from 16.9% to 16.4% of the total amount of awards obligated to small businesses.
The report calls on Congress to further expand support and funding for programs like the Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer, or SBIR/STTR, programs, which offer research grants to businesses with the goal of bringing new technologies to market. A proposed contract vehicle underway at the General Services Administration could bring more support by selling successful SBIR/STTR products governmentwide.
The report also calls on agencies to minimize contract bundling, expand small business outreach and improve the measurement of small business goals by incorporating diversity metrics into small business targets.
When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect
information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly
used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you
can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the
services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our
default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary
Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the
cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out,
etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to
ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy
choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of
your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts
of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or
Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org
to learn more.
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the
sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to
personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal
information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and
will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal
department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My
Rights link
If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have
to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the
web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.
Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They
may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other
sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and
internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a
privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.
A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a
user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your
language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also
use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are
visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking
technologies for the following purposes:
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to
ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy
choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of
your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts
of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or
Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org
to learn more.
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to
ensure the proper functioning of our
website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site
performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You
can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as
intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your
browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org
to learn more.
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to
ensure the proper functioning of our
website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site
performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You
can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as
intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your
browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org
to learn more.
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by
determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and
performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such
cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still
see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices,
browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this
website.
Social Media Cookies
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by
determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and
performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such
cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still
see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices,
browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this
website.
Targeting Cookies
This content was originally published here.
