Women Business Owners Face Gender Gap, Report Says

NEW YORK (AP) — Women who own small business are still far behind their male counterparts when it comes to getting loans and government contracts.

That's the finding of a congressional report by Democratic staffers of the Senate Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee. The report says that while businesses owned by women account for 30 percent of small companies, they receive only 4.4 percent of the total dollars in conventional small-business loans.

And while Congress in 1994 set a government-wide goal of awarding 5 percent of federal contract dollars to small businesses owned by women, it hasn't met that goal. The closest it has come is 4 percent, in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2012.

The small business committee plans a hearing today on ways to address the challenges facing women owners.

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