1) Jan 17 -- he U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is holding a series of two virtual public forums on size standards to update the public on the status of the forthcoming third five-year review of size standards, as mandated by the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, and to consider public testimony on proposed changes to the SBA's size standards methodology for establishing, reviewing, or modifying size standards, as detailed in SBA's 2023 Revised Size Standards Methodology White Paper (2023 Revised Methodology). Testimony presented at these forums will become part of the administrative record for SBA's consideration when finalizing the 2023 Revised Methodology.
The virtual forum dates are as follows:
• Tuesday, January 23, 2024, from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., EST.
• Thursday, January 25, 2024, from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., EST.
FRN:
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2024-00781
2) Dec 11 -- The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA or Agency) advises the public that it has revised its white paper explaining how it establishes, reviews, and modifies small business size standards. The revised white paper provides a detailed description of SBA's size standards methodology, including changes from SBA's 2019 Revised Size Standards Methodology, which guided SBA's recently completed second five-year review of size standards as required by the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (Jobs Act). SBA welcomes comments and feedback on the 2023 Revised Methodology, which SBA intends to apply to the forthcoming third five-year review of size standards. SBA must receive comments to the 2023 Revised Methodology on or before February 9, 2024.
To determine eligibility for Federal small business assistance programs, SBA establishes small business definitions (commonly referred to as “size standards”) for private sector industries in the United States. Under the Small Business Act, the SBA's Administrator has authority to establish small business size standards for Federal Government programs. SBA's existing size standards use two primary measures of business size: average annual receipts and average number of employees. Financial assets and refining capacity are used as size measures for a few specialized industries. In addition, the SBA's Small Business Investment Company (SBIC), 7(a), Certified Development Company (CDC/504) Programs determine small business eligibility using either the industry based size standards or tangible net worth and net income based alternative size standards. Presently, there are 102 different size standards, covering 978 industries and 14 exceptions. Of these, 505 are based on average annual receipts, 483 on number of employees (one of which also includes barrels per calendar day total refining capacity), and four on average assets.
The Jobs Act (Pub. L. 111–240, 124 Stat. 2504, Sept. 27, 2010) requires SBA to review, every five years, all size standards and make necessary adjustments to reflect market conditions. SBA completed the first five-year review of size standards under the Jobs Act in early 2016 and completed the second five-year review of size standards in early 2023. SBA will begin the next (third) five-year review of size standards in the near future.
The goal of SBA's size standards review is to determine whether its existing small business size standards reflect the current industry structure and Federal market conditions and revise them if the latest available data suggests that revisions are warranted. The Small Business Act (the Act), 15 U.S.C. 632(a) (Pub. L. 85–536, 67 Stat. 232, as amended) requires that the size standard varies from industry to industry to the extent necessary to reflect the differing characteristics of the various industries. SBA evaluates the structure of each industry in terms of four economic characteristics or factors, namely average firm size, average assets size as a proxy of startup costs and entry barriers, the four-firm concentration ratio as a measure of industry competition, and size distribution of firms using the Gini coefficient (13 CFR 121.102(a)). Besides industry structure, SBA also examines the impact of an existing size standard as well as the potential impact of a revised size standard on small business participation in Federal contracting as an additional primary factor when establishing or reviewing the size standards. SBA generally considers these five factors—average firm size, average assets size, four-firm concentration ratio, Gini coefficient, and small business participation in Federal contracting—to be the most important factors in determining an industry's size standard. The 2023 Revised Size Standards Methodology White Paper provides a detailed description of evaluation of these factors (including relevant data sources) and derivation of size standards based on the results.
SBA also periodically adjusts all monetary based standards for inflation. In accordance with SBA's regulations (13CFR 121.102(c)) and rulemaking (67 FR 3041; January 23, 2002), an adjustment to size standards for inflation is made at least once every five years. In response to higher than normal rates of inflation, some past inflation adjustments have been made on more frequent intervals. For example, in response to ongoing higher than normal inflation, SBA issued an out-of-cycle inflation adjustment to monetary based size standards on November 17, 2022 (87 FR 69118). The SBA size standards methodology also explains how it adjusts monetary based size standards for inflation. SBA also updates its size standards, every five years, to adopt the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) quinquennial NAICS revisions to its table of small business size standards. Effective October 1, 2022, SBA adopted the OMB's 2022 NAICS revisions (86 FR 72277; December 21, 2021) for its table of small business size standards (87 FR 59240; September 29, 2022). The white paper also explains the SBA procedures for adopting updated NAICS definitions for the table of size standards.
Section 3(a) of the Act provides the SBA's Administrator (Administrator) with authority to establish small business size standards for Federal Government programs. The Administrator has discretion to determine precisely how SBA should establish small business size standards. The Act and its legislative history highlight three important considerations for establishing size standards. . . .
The 2023 Revised Methodology describes in detail how SBA establishes, evaluates, and adjusts its small business size standards pursuant to the Act and related legislative guidelines. Specifically, the document provides a brief review of the legal authority and early legislative and regulatory history of small business size standards, followed by a detailed description of the size standards analysis. Below, SBA provides a brief summary of the revisions to SBA's size standards methodology, which are described in greater detail in the 2023 Revised Methodology. . . .
SBA welcomes comments from the public on a number of issues concerning its size standards methodology. Specifically, SBA invites feedback and suggestions on the following: . . .
SBA's Size Standards Methodology (December 2023):
http://www.sba.gov/size
FRN:
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-27053