In fiscal year 2025, the value share for how much the city spends on contracts and purchase orders declined from 17% to 8% for Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises (M/WBEs). Beyond this disparity exists another disparity: Black- and Brown-owned companies, particularly those owned by Black or Brown women, receive a disproportionately smaller piece of an already small pie.
New York City Councilmember Lincoln Restler, who chairs the Committee on Contracts, oversaw a hearing about M/WBEs this past September where this “disparity within a disparity” continued to come up.
“The thing that troubled me the most was when we dug into the data and looked within the contracts that are going to [M/WBEs], who’s actually getting these contracts? Who’s benefitting?” said Restler. “ I was disheartened to see that out of every 100 contracts that goes to an M/WBE firm, just one of them is owned by a Black woman [and another] is owned by a Latina.
“We are not reaching the communities that need it more broadly. About 7% of total M/WBE contracts go to Black-owned firms and about nearly 8% … go to Latino-owned firms, but we are a majority Black and Latino city.”
Black and Brown New Yorkers make up roughly half the city’s population. However, certified white women- and Asian male-owned companies typically receive a larger value share in the small percentage paid to M/WBEs. Meanwhile, white male-owned businesses still dominate the city’s historically high $46 billion contracting budget as disbursed in fiscal year 2025, which ended in September 2025.
The M/WBE program dates back to before the millennia but was terminated by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani before a bill enacted in 2005 established today’s initiative, which stems from the Department of Small Business Services and certifies companies with at least 51% women or nonwhite ownership.
The city is currently working on a new M/WBE tracking platform called B2G, which mirrors similar efforts by the state.
However, the bookkeeping process itself can be flawed. A bill sponsored by Restler would mandate nonprofit vendors to report any subcontracting to M/WBEs, which can provide more pointed oversight and paint a clearer picture of when money trickles down to Black- and Brown-owned companies ranging from private security firms to food services.
“Nonprofits are an extension of city government,” Restler said. “They are funded primarily by our taxpayer dollars and we can set goals in their contracts to achieve a multiplicity of benefits for New Yorkers, above and beyond delivering high-quality services to their clients. One example of that is creating more wealth and opportunity in diverse communities across our city through subcontracting with M/WBEs.”
