Trump admin to cut Small Business Admin staff by 43%

SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler announced on Friday that around 2,700 jobs will be cut from the staff of 6,500. “The SBA was created to be a launchpad for America’s small businesses by offering access to capital, which in turn drives job creation, innovation, and a thriving Main Street,” Loeffler said in a statement. "But in the last four years, the agency has veered off track — doubling in size and turning into a sprawling leviathan plagued by mission creep, financial mismanagement, and waste."

"Just like the small business owners we support, we must do more with less. We have therefore submitted plans to pursue a strategic restructuring that will realign the agency and its resources with our founding mission," Loeffler added in a statement.

In a video posted to X, the SBA administrator also emphasized that the workforce has doubled since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and that there are often "rows of empty desks" at the SBA building with many staffers working remotely.

She took aim at the ineffectiveness of the agency under the Biden administration, saying, "The last administration deployed the full force of this agency to advance a new partisan agenda from Green New Deal lending programs to DEI contracting. Predictably, the SBA's services suffered. For four full years, the agency failed to pass an audit."

"Our largest loan program, which should operate at zero cost to taxpayers, saw negative cash flow for the first time in over a decade. Meanwhile, they refused to investigate or prosecute more than $200 billion in pandemic-era fraud that is still to this day owed to American taxpayers," Loeffler added.

As the agency is taking steps to fire over 40 percent of its staff, President Donald Trump has also said that the agency will be handling student loans as the Department of Education has been stripped of everything except its core functions under an executive order signed by Trump on Thursday.

"As administrator, I'm committed to restoring the SBA's mission of promoting America's small businesses with accountability and results. Because when we restore our mission, we will also restore the historic prosperity that lifted up millions of small businesses during President Trump's first term. In short, we will make Main Street great again," Loeffler concluded in the video statement.