SBA Government Scorecard shows increase in small business spending

News - Published Jul 26, 2023

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced the results of the annual Small Business Federal Procurement Scorecard for fiscal year 2022. The Scorecard is a measure of the extent to which the various agencies that the federal government comprises have succeeded in reaching their individually-set small business utilization goals, as well as the overall grade for the federal government as a whole.

The Scorecard notes that the federal government $162.9 billion with small businesses in fiscal year 2022, an increase of $8 billion over the prior year. Additionally, this spending amounted to 26.5 percent of total federal spending, exceeding the government-wide contracting goal of 23 percent. The Scorecard thus awarded the federal government an "A" grade, with ten individual federal agencies recieving an "A+" grade, other agencies receiving numerous "A"s and "B"s, with only one "C" grade and only one "D" grade.

Additional highlights of the Scorecard report include spending with Small Disadvantaged Businesses (SDBs) exceeding the 11 percent goal for a second year in a row; spending with Service-disabled Veteran-owned small business (SDVOBs) reaching 4.6 percent, exceeding the 3 percent goal; spending with HUBZones reaching $16.3 billion, the highest spend yet (despite that this figure falls short of the 3 percent HUBZone goal); and Women-owned Small Businesses (WOSBs), receiving over $26 billion in spending, or 4.6 percent (despite that this too falls short of the 5 percent goal for WOSBs).

The SBA also has made a number of strategic actions recently in order to continue and improve this performance, such as a "Supplier Base Dashboard" service which provides better data on federal agencies' vendor usage; including small business goal attainment performance in the evaluation of senior executives within federal agencies; releasing an updated HUBZone map; and other outreach and development initiatives. 

"Through President Biden's Investing in America agenda, we have championed initiatives to fuel our nation's historic economic growth, also reducing barriers and ensuring fair competition," said SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman in a statement.

Read the SBA's press release on the Scorecard at https://www.sba.gov/article/2023/07/18/readout-sba-administrator-guzman-nasa-administrator-nelson-scorecard-release-event-tuesday.

Read the SBA's press release on procurement utilization at https://www.sba.gov/article/2023/07/18/biden-harris-administration-sets-record-breaking-163-billion-federal-procurement-opportunities-small.

Find the SBA's 2022 Scorecard at https://www.sba.gov/document/support-small-business-procurement-scorecard-overview.