Transportation For America » TEN study: minority and women-owned businesses got small slice of stimulus

TEN study: minority and women-owned businesses got small slice of stimulus

January 13, 2010
By Sean Barry

--Recovery Although unemployment turned out worse than some forecasters anticipated, there has been some consensus among economists that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed earlier this year prevented even higher job losses while channeling much-needed relief to states.

With a 1/3 of the money out the door already, the stimulus was able to work, in part, because the money was spent relatively quickly. But spending money quickly often relies on formulas and methods that are outdated, or — as evidenced in a report last month by the Transportation Equity Network (TEN) and Good Jobs First — inequitable. Minority-owned businesses have received only 10.2 percent of stimulus funds toward federal contracts, while women-owned businesses received 5.9 percent.

There were similar shortcomings at the state level. The head of the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has said he was “not aware of a single one of our members who’s received a contract related to the stimulus package.” In Colorado, the Denver Post reported that the state Department of Transportation failed to meet its minority hiring target of 7.5 percent.

These numbers have been noticed in Washington. The Congressional Black Caucus is pushing Democratic leaders to make sure the in-progress jobs bill provides real relief to many of their majority-minority districts, and President Obama has pressed governors to step up their efforts as well. If and when the Senate takes up job-creation legislation similar to the House version passed in December, it will provide an opening to learn from the stimulus and ensure everyone takes part in America’s economic recovery.

Filed under: Campaign Blog
Tags: ARRA, economic recovery, jobs, jobs bill, stimulus, TEN

http://www.transportationequity.org Stephen Boykewich

Thanks for the post about the TEN report, Sean! A one-pager with the full statistics and sources is available at http://www.transportationequity.org/images/downloads/stimulus_one-pager.pdf