The Biden-Harris Administration Leads a Small Business Boom

Starting a small business is freaking hard! Trust me, I’m doing it: hustling to find new clients; staying up at night worrying about payroll; and working nights, weekends, and every spare chance you have—all while wondering if you’ve made a terrible, life-altering mistake. Sometimes it feels like you’re running repeatedly, head-first at a wall in the hope that it will eventually give way. Well, the Biden-Harris administration can’t remove the wall, but at least it’s handed many of us a helmet.

Small businesses drive the U.S. economy. Companies with less than 500 employees account for 44% of the country’s total economic activity, employ 61.7 million Americans (46% of the total private workforce), and created 63% (17.3 million) of all new jobs since 1995. It’s no wonder that the Biden-Harris administration wants to tune this economic engine as well as possible.

Last year, the Biden-Harris administration surpassed its small business contracting goal by 28.4%, the highest level of federal partnership with the sector ever. This amounted to a $178.6 billion investment in the country’s small businesses. The White House also invested $50 million in 10,000 small businesses through the American Rescue Plan.

A huge headwind for many small business owners over the last few years has been inflation. However, since passing the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, national inflation has fallen from a high of 8.3% to 2.9% in 2024. It’s no wonder that 17 million new small business applications were filed under the Biden-Harris administration.

Sources