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

M/WBE Availability in the City of Cleveland’s Market Area
marital status, disability status, veteran status, interest and dividend income, labor market
attachment, industry, geographic location, and local labor market variables such as the
unemployment rate, population growth rate, government employment rate, or per capita
income. 226
To summarize, the statistical analysis of the availability of minority firms compared to
nonminority firms to examine the existence and effects of discrimination in disparity studies
should not adjust for inappropriate “capacity” factors because:
• “Capacity” has been ill-defined; and reliable data for measurement are generally
unavailable;
• Small firms, particularly in the construction industry, are highly elastic with regard to
ability to perform;
• Many disparity studies have shown that even when “capacity” and “qualifications”-type
factors are held constant in statistical analyses, evidence of disparate impact against
M/WBE firms persists; and
• Most important, identifiable indicators of “capacity” are themselves impacted by
discrimination.
C. Estimates of M/WBE and DBE Availability by Detailed Race, Gender,
and Industry
Top-level estimates of M/WBE availability appear below in Table 4.21. Two sets of weighted
availability measures are provided for each of the four major procurement categories of
Construction, AE-CRS, Services, and Commodities. The first set is based on award dollars for all
contracts and the second set is based on paid dollars for all contracts. In general, both weighting
procedures yield similar results.
Table 4.22 provides comparable DBE availability estimates applicable to federally-assisted
USDOT contracts awarded by the Department of Port Control.
As shown in Table 4.21, overall M/WBE availability in the construction sector is between 17.01
and 17.20 percent. Non-M/WBE availability is between 82.80 and 82.99 percent. Among
M/WBEs, availability of African American-owned businesses is between 3.16 and 3.17 percent,
availability of Hispanic-owned businesses is between 1.03 and 1.07 percent, availability of
Asian/Pacific Islander-owned businesses is between 0.10 and 0.11 percent, and availability of
Native American-owned businesses is 0.92 percent. Availability of minority-owned businesses
as a group is between 5.22 and 5.24 percent. Availability of nonminority female-owned
businesses is between 11.77 and 11.99 percent.
226 Wainwright (2000).
NERA Economic Consulting 128