Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday is set to announce federal funding to more than 40 organizations helping underserved entrepreneurs grow and scale small businesses, which the White House is billing as “a key pillar of ‘Bidenomics'” — the name given to the administration’s push to sell President Joe Biden’s economic plans.
“This program marks what I think is the crucial next step in minority businesses’ pathway to the American dream,” a senior administration official told reporters on Thursday.
Harris is expected to make the announcement while on a visit to Sycamore and Oak, a minority-owned Washington, D.C., retail village that houses 13 small businesses.
The grants are part of the $125 million Capital Readiness Program, funded by a program reauthorized in the American Rescue Plan signed by President Joe Biden in 2021.
“This is the largest technical assistance program of its kind in the history of the Commerce Department,” a senior administration official said.
Officials on Thursday’s call said they received 1,000 applications for the program. The 43 organizations that were selected and will receive funding include nonprofits, private sector entities and higher education institutions located around the country.
“They’re going to form partnerships to help underserved entrepreneurs who are in need of the resources, the tools, the training, the technical assistance they need to start or scale their businesses in high-growth industries, like health care, climate resilient technology, asset management and infrastructure,” a senior administration official said.
The White House noted in a fact sheet Friday’s announcement builds upon $300 million dollars already given through the administration to aid small businesses. That funding comes from the Small Business Administration’s Community Navigator Program and the Treasury Department’s State Small Business Credit Initiative.
The Capital Readiness Program is administered by the Minority Business Development Agency – which is part of the Department of Commerce and focused on supporting minority-owned businesses. A senior administration official on the call noted the agency was first created in 1969 at the end of the civil rights movement, but was made permanent for the first time under Biden through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.
The Biden administration has been in a full-force effort trying to sell the public on the president’s economic agenda, dubbed “Bidenomics.”
Despite the now weeks-long push and positive economic indicators, a poll released by the New York Times and Siena College earlier this week found 49% of respondents rated economic conditions as poor. Only 20% saw conditions as good or excellent.
