Sen. Joni Ernst proposes bipartisan legislation for women-owned small businesses

In today's Small Business Women #DSM--

Senator Joni Ernst and New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand introduced bipartisan legislation directing the Small Business Administration to conduct a study on women-based small business participation in multiple award contrats from the federal government.

 In Iowa, 97% of employers are small businesses and 82,000 businesses in Iowa are women-owned small businesses.

Senator Ernst hopes to find important answers from the proposed plan:

"Hopefully this legislation that Senator Gillibrand and I are proposing will pinpoint some of the issues that might exist out there. If there are not issues for women participating we need to know that as well and maybe encourage women to get involved in these multiple awards contracts we just simply need to see what's available out there, if there are barriers, what are those barriers and how can we assist women especially small business owners to participate what will enable them to participate in these federal multiple award contracts."

If the study finds there are no barriers out there,  Senator Ernst says we will need to better educate women on the opportunities that exist with federal contracting, and that can be done through the Small Business Administration.