The State of Minority- and Women- Owned ... - Cleveland.com

M/WBE Availability in the City of Cleveland’s Market Area
Exclusions resulted primarily from firms that were no longer in business. 220 Of the remaining
5,842 firms, 2,894 (49.5%) were listed M/WBEs and the remaining 2,948 establishments
(50.5%) were unclassified.
The first part of the survey tested whether our sample of listed M/WBEs was correctly classified
by race and/or gender. The second part of the survey tested whether the unclassified firms (that
is, firms putatively owned by nonminority males) could all be properly classified as non-
M/WBEs. Both elements of the survey are described in more detail below. 221
b. Survey of Listed M/WBEs
We selected a stratified random sample of 3,202 listed M/WBEs to verify the race and gender
status of their owner(s). Of these, 308 (9.6%) were excluded as “unable to contact.” Of the 2,894
remaining establishments, we obtained complete interviews from 1,480, for a response rate of
51.1 percent.
Table 4.17. Listed M/WBE Survey—Amount of Misclassification, by Putative M/WBE Type
Putative Race/Gender
African American
(either gender)
Hispanic
(either gender)
Asian/Pacific Islander
(either gender)
Native American
(either gender)
Misclassification
(Percentage
Nonminority
Male)
Misclassification
(Percentage
Other M/WBE
Type)
Percentage
Correctly
Classified
Number of
Businesses
Interviewed
6.40 1.60 92.00 268
41.24 20.62 38.14 46
27.64 15.45 56.91 81
46.15 23.08 30.77 22
Nonminority Female 19.72 6.40 73.88 1,063
All M/WBE Types 20.00 7.57 72.43 1,480
Source: NERA telephone surveys.
Notes: (1) Figures are rounded. Rounding was performed subsequent to any mathematical calculations. (2)
Similar calculations, not shown here, were performed within each stratum.
Of the 1,480 establishments interviewed, 296 (20.0 percent) were actually owned by nonminority
males. Misclassification varied by putative race and gender, as shown in Table 4.17.
Misclassification was highest among putative Native American-owned firms, followed by
220 Putative M/WBEs were not more likely to be affected by this than putative non-M/WBEs.
221 By “putative,” we mean the race and gender that we initially assigned to each firm based on the information
provided by the City of Cleveland, by Dun & Bradstreet, by our master DBE directory, and from other sources.
NERA Economic Consulting 122