THE EFFECTS OF AFFIRMATION ACTION LAWS
This research examines the effects on small business organizations of affirmative action laws. Affirmative action legislation in the United States at both the federal and state levels of government establish guidelines for the development and implementation of social policy with respect to equal employment opportunities and with respect to the rectification of past acts of employment discrimination against selected population groups. The importance of small business activity to the American can hardly be exaggerated. Defining a small business as one with either fewer than 100 employees, or less than one-million dollars in annual receipts, somewhat more than two-thirds (67.9 percent) of all business enterprises in the United States are classified as small. These firms, in turn, account for 40.8 percent of non-government and non-farm employment, 35.8 percent of sales revenues, and 32 percent of the country's gross national product.
The fact that small businesses employ 40 percent of the American workforce illustrates the magnitude of their activity on society. Apart from this concrete impact, small business also has an abstract impact on American society. The very presence of the small business sector supports the dreams of individuals that they can, someday, be independent of large organizations. While the likelihood that such an eventuality will ever come to pass for most Americans is quite low, the continued presence of the dream--the mere possibility--is important psychologically.
Providing equal opportunity to minority groups within a society is more a social issue than it is a legal issue. Requirements for equality may be legislated, and those
requirements may be enforced with some degree of effectiveness. Real equality of opportunity will not occur, however, until such time as the great majority of individuals and organizations within a society voluntarily behave in a...