Was the fastest growth of Black-owned small businesses in 30 years under Biden?

As President Joe Biden ramps up efforts to win over Wisconsin voters, one of Milwaukee’s leading Democratic officials lauded the gains Black Americans made under the Biden administration.

On May 16, during an event for Vice President Kamala Harris, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley claimed: "Under (the Biden) administration we have witnessed the fastest growth of black-owned small businesses in more than 30 years."

Let’s dig into the numbers.

What Crowley said might have sounded very familiar. Why?

In early 2023, Biden spoke of the record numbers of new Black entrepreneurs during campaign speeches Jan. 27 in South Carolina and Feb. 4 in Las Vegas. The White House even released a factsheet discussing similar claims Feb. 6. 

Here’s what the fact sheet laid out:

Since the President entered office, a record 16 million new business applications have been filed, and the share of Black households owning a business has more than doubled. Building on this momentum, the Biden-Harris Administration has: 

Achieved the fastest creation rate of Black-owned businesses in more than 30 years — and more than doubled the share of Black business owners from 2019 to 2022.

Featured Fact-check

Robin Vos

stated on November 6, 2024 in News conference

“Every single county in America, every single county, Kamala Harris did worse than Joe Biden did.”

PolitiFact National did an earlier fact-check on the Biden administration’s statements on Black entrepreneurs from the fact sheet and rated it True. 

Census Bureau and the Federal Reserve Board datasets found record levels of Black business ownership in 2021 and 2022. Independent analyses say that some of Biden’s policies likely played a role.

PolitiFact cited a Brookings Institution analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Business Survey that showed the number of Black-owned businesses with more than one employee has increased every year since 2017.

In the same fact-check, PolitiFact cited the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances from 2022. It reported that 11% of Black households held equity in a business.

When PolitiFact contacted the Biden administration for comment for its fact-check, the White House "shared independent analyses suggesting that some Biden policies helped spur these increases."

The analyses in question focused on changes the Biden administration made to a pandemic-era initiative, the Paycheck Protection Program, which lent money to small businesses that needed it.

On May 16, Crowley said: "Under (the Biden) administration we have witnessed the fastest growth of black-owned small businesses in more than 30 years."

Crowley had been referring to a statement the White House made earlier this year, which PolitiFact had fact-checked and found was supported by Census Bureau and the Federal Reserve Board data and independent analysis.  

We rate this claim True.