Women's Business Centers Improvements Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Ms. DAVIDS of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote yes on H.R. 4405, the Women's Business Centers Improvements Act of 2019, which would increase access to vital resources and opportunities for female entrepreneurs in Kansas and across the country.

I thank Ranking Member Chabot and Chairwoman Velazquez for their commitment to small businesses in our country.

I thank my fellow Small Business Committee member, Representative Hagedorn, for cosponsoring and co-leading this bipartisan piece of legislation with me.

This bill helps to strengthen the Women's Business Center program, which funds more than 100 women's business centers, also known as WBCs, across the country and in the district I represent in Kansas.

These centers provide small business owners, many of whom are socially and economically disadvantaged, with critical counseling and training at all stages of their business development.

Many WBCs provide multilingual services, maintain evening and weekend hours to accommodate clients who work full time, and allow children to attend sessions with their mothers.

The value of WBCs cannot be overstated. Women are the fastest growing sector of entrepreneurs in our country. We often forget that up until 1988, women would have a hard time applying for a business loan without a male relative to cosign it.

Now, more than 11.6 million businesses in the United States are owned by women, and more than 5.4 million businesses are majority owned by women of color.

But even though we have made great progress, many unique challenges still exist for women, particularly women of color, to start and grow a business. These include things like limited access to funding resources and the support system needed to get a business off the ground and maintain its success.

I see this firsthand when I am doing a ``Sharice's Shift'' in my district. It is our outreach program where I work at a local business and spend time with that business owner in my community.

WBCs are critical in addressing a whole range of women's entrepreneurial needs. They provide training, mentoring, business development, and financing opportunities for 145,000 women entrepreneurs each year.

The Kansas City Women's Business Center, located in Fairway, Kansas-- which I proudly represent--serves over 600 clients annually in both Kansas and Missouri through business trainings, workshops, counseling, and access to capital programs.

That is why it is so important to support the WBC program. Despite the tremendous growth of the program since its creation in 1988, its resources have not kept up with the even greater growth of women entrepreneurs.

My bill would authorize funding for the WBC program for 4 years at $31.5 million. It is currently at $18 million. This increase ensures the program can reach even more women.

It would also increase the cap on individual center grants to $300,000 and index for inflation for the first time since the program's creation.

According to a survey conducted by the Association of Women Business Centers, 70 percent of the centers could match at least $300,000. And it would establish an accreditation program to strengthen WBCs and raise the standards of excellence for training and counseling women entrepreneurs.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the Women's Business Centers Improvements Act and help ensure that we can create a level playing field for female entrepreneurs that sets them up for success.

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