WASHINGTON – Today, Administrator Isabel Guzman, the voice in President Biden’s Cabinet for America’s more than 33 million small businesses, announced newly finalized Fiscal Year 2023 SBA data showing that the rate of SBA-backed loans to Latino-owned small businesses has now doubled under the Biden-Harris Administration, topping $3 billion in lending.
“Our country is experiencing a small business boom driven significantly by the entrepreneurial spirit, drive, and resilience of the Latino community – and the Biden-Harris Administration is working to reverse historic underinvestment in Latinos to unleash their full potential and advance our economy and global competitiveness,” said SBA Administrator Isabel Guzman. “Under President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, the SBA has doubled the number of loans it backs annually to Latino-owned small businesses and reached a record $3 billion in lending to Latino business lending in Fiscal Year 2023 – an 80 percent increase from 2020. While there remains work to be done, this data is an encouraging sign of progress that the SBA will continue to build on as we seek to close long-standing gaps in lending to Latino-owned small businesses.”
In a tightening credit environment, the SBA’s lending programs offer small businesses a critical alternative: affordable loans backed by the federal government. The SBA backed more than 7,700 SBA loans to Latino-owned small businesses in Fiscal Year 2023 through the agency’s signature 7(a) and 504 loan programs, double the number in Fiscal Year 2020. Total loan dollars ($3.0 billion) are up nearly $1.4 billion since the start of the Biden-Harris Administration, while the Latino share of the SBA’s lending portfolio rose from under 8 percent to over 12 percent.
