In an exclusive interview with Federal News Network, Bibi Hidalgo, the associate administrator of the SBA’s Office of Government Contracting and Business Development, Hidalgo told the website that her office is “working with the House and Senate small business committees to introduce legislation that would codify Biden’s new contracting goals into law.”

The legislation would raise the federal government’s contracting goals with disadvantaged business enterprises, or DBEs, to 15 percent — up from 10 percent.

Federal government contracting reached an all-time high in fiscal year 2020, the fifth consecutive year of increases. The amount of dollars — $682 billion — amounted to a 14 percent increase over the previous highest, $599 billion in fiscal year 2019. The government’s response to coronavirus is widely credited for the massive increase in contract spending. While fiscal year 2021 concluded on the last day of June, this trend did not really abate during that time and so it is likely that FY2021 spending was also astronomical.

But since we have the numbers for fiscal year 2021 contract spending, it’s worth noting that 15 percent of $682 billion means more than $100 billion that would go to disadvantaged business enterprises.

While codifying the goal is a good move, the federal government already surpassed its goals. As we just noted, 15 percent of FY2021’s all-time high would be just a bit over $100 billion going to DBEs. 

And as we reported at the end of July, the federal government awarded 26 percent of its contract dollars to small businesses in FY2021, accounting for $145.7 billion in contract spending. However it’s worth noting that “small business” goals are separate from DBE goals and are set at 23 percent.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.