“I have often made the point that to foster the economic status and pride of members of our minority groups, we must seek to involve them more fully in our private enterprise system. … To do this, we need to remove commercial obstacles that have too often stood in their way — obstacles such as the unavailability of credit, insurance, and technical assistance.”
Those were the words that gave rise to the first iteration of what would become the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) — spoken by Republican President Richard Nixon.
More than 50 years later, those words ring hollow as the Trump administration races to dismantle the agency, hollowing out the small staff that remained after earlier rounds of downsizing — just 23 career employees — to none. Today, only two political appointees remain, one of whom also serves as the deputy secretary of Labor.
The MBDA is not a bureaucratic relic. It was a rare glimmer of bipartisan progress during the civil rights era and remains the only federal agency devoted to expanding opportunity for entrepreneurs historically locked out of capital markets and contracting networks. Its dismantling is both a moral failure and an economic crisis.
A small staff, a massive mission
At its height, the MBDA oversaw business centers and technical-assistance hubs serving thousands of enterprises. It supported more than 12 million minority business enterprises across the United States — including owners who are socially or economically disadvantaged, such as rural, veteran- and women-led small businesses.
Through a network of more than 130 centers and partners, MBDA provided hands-on technical assistance to help businesses grow. No free money. No direct loans. Just guidance to help these businesses help themselves.
MBDA delivered results. During Morrissette’s leadership, immediately before the Trump administration, MBDA helped businesses secure billions in contracts and capital, creating and retaining tens of thousands of jobs. The agency also launched the Capital Readiness Program — the largest-ever federal initiative of its kind — serving thousands of entrepreneurs and raising hundreds of millions in capital.
What we stand to lose
When MBDA is dismantled, the casualties are not bureaucrats — they are business owners, workers and America’s competitiveness. Without MBDA, disadvantaged businesses lose support navigating capital markets and procurement systems. Minority-owned and disadvantaged businesses receive less capital and pay more for it; MBDA helped close that gap.
Its efforts also diversified contracting pipelines, making supply chains more resilient. And its mission aligns with the broader economic imperative of closing America’s opportunity gap — estimated at trillions in potential economic output. Activating that untapped potential strengthens the entire economy.
Why it matters
For African American entrepreneurs, MBDA has long been one of the few federal lifelines amid systemic exclusion from wealth creation. Black business ownership remains a powerful tool for asset development.
In 2022, Black-owned businesses added billions in revenue to the U.S. economy and paid billions in wages. Cutting MBDA is not fiscal prudence; it is economic sabotage in a broader dismantling of civil rights and economic scaffolding.
The path forward
We must demand that Congress and the Administration act swiftly to restore MBDA’s staffing, budget, and partner network. Lawmakers must:
- Restore independent nonpolitical programs and staff to support disadvantaged businesses.
- Guarantee stable funding so the agency cannot be hollowed out each time administrations change.
- Protect MBDA’s statutory authority to focus on disadvantaged entrepreneurs.
- Modernize MBDA’s mission for an AI-driven economy.
- Reinforce the apolitical nature of MBDA’s work with bipartisan safeguards.
MBDA’s destruction would signal that the federal government no longer feels an obligation to correct deep marketplace inequities — the very inequities Nixon sought to address. Our economy is strongest when every community can build and own, and when capital flows not just to those who have always had it but to those ready to create something new.
Letting MBDA die would betray that promise. Defending and expanding it would affirm that economic opportunity belongs to every American.
Dedrick Asante-Muhammad is president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
Eric Morrissette is a senior fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and served as acting national director of the Minority Business Development Agency.