Entrepreneurship is the engine of NYC’s economy. New businesses create jobs, revitalize neighborhoods, and provide people, especially women and members of minority groups, with a self-sustaining path to financial independence. A closely watched measure of inequality is the number of city contracts awarded to Minority & Women Owned Businesses (MWBEs). Mayor de Blasio has promised to award 30% of city contracts to MWBEs by 2021, creating a task force in 2015 to ensure progress is being made in meeting that goal.

To understand Business Development as a function of inequality, we used four indicators:

• Race/Gender & City Contracts
• Race & Business Ownership
• Gender & Business Ownership
• Location & Business Revenue

Take a look at the chart to your right for an overall picture of this topic, and then look at each indicator for more detail and additional findings.