Every year, National Small Business Week offers a chance to pause and recognize the entrepreneurs who form the backbone of communities across the country. This year’s celebration — May 3-9, 2026 — arrives as small businesses continue to face challenges and uncertainty. These circumstances demand we do more than celebrate. We must also take action.
According to the Federal Reserve’s latest Small Business Credit Survey, 77% of small businesses reported that tariffs and/or inflation were a financial challenge in 2025, and only 52% of small businesses were approved for the full amount of financing they sought, down from 62% in 2019. For businesses already operating on thin margins, these aren’t abstract statistics. They’re the difference between staying open and shutting down.
What makes this moment particularly fraught is the convergence of multiple pressures hitting simultaneously:
- Federal policy changes: Effective March 1, 2026, the SBA barred lawful permanent residents from accessing SBA 7(a) and 504 loans; by April 1, 2026 green card holders were barred from all SBA lending programs. Immigrant entrepreneurs start new businesses at twice the rate of the U.S.-born population, meaning this policy shuts out a vital engine of American economic growth and pushes affected business owners toward alternative, often costlier, financing.
- Rising costs: Small businesses are navigating the ongoing financial toll of tariffs and inflation. Large retailers can absorb cost increases through volume, supplier leverage, and diversified supply chains. Main Street businesses cannot.
- A growing predatory lending crisis: As traditional credit tightens, predatory online lenders are aggressively targeting small businesses in financial distress. Business owners need to know the warning signs and where to find trustworthy alternatives.
- Racial disparities in lending: White-owned small businesses were nearly twice as likely as Black- or Latino-owned small businesses to be fully approved for financing in 2025 — a 57% approval rate compared to 32% and 33%, respectively.
Despite the headwinds, many free and low-cost resources remain available to help entrepreneurs stabilize and grow. Federal programs may have contracted, but community-based resources have stepped up. Here are some of the most reliable options:
- CDFIs: Community lenders offering fair financing to businesses shut out of traditional credit.
- SBDCs: Small Business Development Centers provide free advising and technical assistance.
- The SCALE program: An initiative connecting California-based businesses with free coaching and capital access.
Shopping local is important, but honoring entrepreneurs on National Small Business Week means more than that. It means demanding that policymakers protect access to fair capital regardless of immigration status. It means insisting on equity in lending. It means creating guardrails so that predatory financial products don’t target vulnerable entrepreneurs. And it means funding and supporting the community organizations that fill the gaps when federal programs fall short.
Small business owners show up every day with extraordinary commitment to make their dreams come true. Let’s match that commitment on National Small Business Week and beyond.