Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) recently touted the benefits of a bill designed to strengthen the Small Business Administration (SBA) Microloan Program by increasing the limit on outstanding loans to intermediary lending organizations.
Gillibrand said the Microloan Modernization Act would allow for more loans to be made to women, minority, and other business owners while also expanding opportunities for more hands-on training assistance to help small business owners succeed.
“Too many would-be small business owners struggle to get loans from banks to start their businesses,” Gillibrand said. “More often than not, the people who lose out are women and minority New Yorkers. The bipartisan Microloan Modernization Act would help ensure that every hardworking entrepreneur who wants to start a business has a chance to do it. If we really want to fix our economy, then we need to start rewarding work and entrepreneurship again and this bipartisan bill is a good place to start.”
The Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship said women receive less than 5 percent of conventional small business loans, even though they make up nearly 40 percent of all small businesses in the country. The Department of Commerce learned among smaller minority-owned businesses, loan denial rates for minority firms were about three times higher compared to those of non-minority-owned firms.