The Small Business Administration is marking National Small Business Week from May 1-7.
The week includes a four-day virtual summit. Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman addressed registered participants during the educational and networking event on May 2. The event continued May 3 and May 4 with presentations from Amazon, Visa, Constant Contact, Square, Meta, Samsung, Chase, and other companies.
President Joe Biden issued the proclamation marking National Small Business Week. “More than 32 million small businesses employ almost half of America’s workforce and represent the heart and soul of countless communities,” Biden said in prepared remarks. “During National Small Business Week, we celebrate America’s small businesses and their enormous contributions to American life and prosperity.”
Also this week, Guzman is embarking on a nine-city bus tour of cities in California, Colorado, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.
The designation comes as banks continue to play an essential role in lending to small firms, an impact especially felt during the pandemic. Data taken from 690 lending firms of at least $1.3 billion in assets tracked through the Community Reinvestment Act revealed that approximately 8.4 million small business loans of $1 million or less were reported in 2020 — nearly 11 percent more than the previous year. Those loans totaled nearly $461.8 billion — a nearly 79 percent jump from 2019. Nearly 9-in-10 of the small businesses loans and more than 78 percent of small farm loans in the study were for less than $100,000.