Women-owned businesses can have a positive effect on both a local and national level. By securing grants for their own ventures, women can also help enrich the economy as a whole as a powerful set of buyers.
One of the Small Business Administration’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Partner Groups, Women Impacting Public Policy, released a report in March about the “way forward” to support women-owned businesses. Although the main thrust of this blueprint was what stances should be taken in the future, there were also important statistics about the current role these enterprises play.
Using Census Bureau data from 2015, the source said that 36.3 percent of the businesses in the U.S. that weren’t farms were owned by women, accounting for more than 9.8 million enterprises in total, and that the vast majority of these were self-employed. Because of this, women who own businesses represent a significant economic force, especially as they grow into a position to bring in more workers and solicit more transactions with consumers around the world.
“Women who own businesses represent a significant economic force.”
In a March 22 press statement on this report, the president of WIPP, Jane Campbell, emphasized the power and needs of women who own businesses and also called upon Congress to help.
“Women business owners are an economic force. They’re growing at nearly four times the rate of men-owned businesses, they generate $1.6 trillion in receipts and they make up 36 percent of all non-farm businesses in this country,” said Campbell. “Yet too often their specific policy needs fall by the wayside.”
She went on to call that state of affairs “unacceptable.”
If women who own businesses in Ohio want to make a direct impact on their community, they can consider the Ohio 166 Regional Loan Program. This initiative requires employers to create jobs as they borrow and can grant a loan as high as $500,000. Contact us to learn more.