Chicago MBE/WBE Payments: 35.4% Of $7.44B, And The Record Ends In 2024

Chicago’s public record of what it pays minority- and women-owned firms on purchasing-department contracts runs to March 2024 and stops. Across the 18 reporting periods it holds, the city paid $7,437,695,599 on Department of Procurement Services contracts and $2,634,584,486 of it — 35.4 percent — to certified MBE and WBE firms. The last period in the file, the first quarter of 2024, is also its lowest at 24.7 percent, and the file has not been updated in 763 days.

Minority and Women Business Payments (fa8m-mqz6), 18 reporting periods covering January 1, 2019 through March 31, 2024, retrieved September 16, 2026; the file was last updated August 14, 2024 · scope, in the file’s own words: the figures relate “solely to contracts awarded through the Department of Procurement Services” and are “a snapshot in time and subject to change” · periods, not quarters: three of the 18 combine two quarters · the file names no firm and holds no count of firms · the city’s participation goals are not in the file, so no shortfall is computed here

Eighteen periods, and then the record ends

Every period in the file. Three of them — 2019 Q1-Q2, 2021 Q1-Q2 and 2021 Q3-Q4 — combine two quarters, which is why the file counts 18 periods rather than 21 quarters.
Reporting period	All payments	To MBE and WBE firms	Share	MBE	WBE
2019 Q1-Q2	$682,176,249	$200,341,816	29.4%	23.8%	5.5%
2019 Q3	$442,730,069	$140,057,550	31.6%	26.3%	5.3%
2019 Q4	$344,989,327	$89,385,938	25.9%	20.5%	5.4%
2020 Q1	$368,602,662	$121,909,719	33.1%	26.8%	6.2%
2020 Q2	$324,967,696	$104,771,314	32.2%	27.4%	4.8%
2020 Q3	$307,204,909	$96,654,469	31.5%	26.5%	5.0%
2020 Q4	$331,707,072	$111,094,956	33.5%	27.8%	5.7%
2021 Q1-Q2	$590,254,681	$248,713,067	42.1%	33.1%	9.0%
2021 Q3-Q4	$513,495,244	$195,091,238	38.0%	30.3%	7.7%
2022 Q1	$371,961,789	$129,822,678	34.9%	27.9%	7.0%
2022 Q2	$219,083,791	$70,812,763	32.3%	26.2%	6.1%
2022 Q3	$314,963,804	$129,907,066	41.2%	33.5%	7.7%
2022 Q4	$598,998,700	$261,833,545	43.7%	36.9%	6.8%
2023 Q1	$437,050,587	$161,817,870	37.0%	30.3%	6.7%
2023 Q2	$355,732,095	$140,284,976	39.4%	32.5%	6.9%
2023 Q3	$442,038,175	$166,264,239	37.6%	31.8%	5.8%
2023 Q4	$403,266,172	$169,807,936	42.1%	34.8%	7.3%
2024 Q1	$388,472,577	$96,013,346	24.7%	20.4%	4.3%

The combined share opens at 29.4 percent in the first half of 2019, crosses 40 percent in four periods — the first half of 2021, the third and fourth quarters of 2022 and the fourth of 2023 — and peaks at 43.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022, on $598,998,700 of payments. Then comes the first quarter of 2024 at 24.7 percent, the lowest figure in the file, and the record stops there.

Four of every five of those dollars went to MBE firms

Of the $2.63 billion, $2.16 billion went to minority business enterprises and $475.9 million to women business enterprises — 81.9 and 18.1 percent of that total, or 29.0 and 6.4 percent of all payments. The WBE share is the smaller of the two in every period and moves less: it runs from 4.3 percent in the final quarter to 9.0 percent in the first half of 2021, a spread of 4.7 points, against 16.5 points for MBE. The file does not say how many firms are behind either figure, nor whether a firm certified in both categories is counted in both.

Construction and everything else

The file splits every period into construction and non-construction payments.
Half of the file	Payments	To MBE and WBE firms	Share
Construction	$2,367,106,962	$799,865,585	33.8%
Everything else	$5,070,588,636	$1,834,718,902	36.2%
All payments	$7,437,695,599	$2,634,584,486	35.4%

Construction is the smaller half of the money — $2.37 billion against $5.07 billion — and the lower share, 33.8 percent against 36.2. It is also the more variable: construction’s MBE and WBE share runs from 23.6 percent in the third quarter of 2020 to 43.6 percent in the fourth quarters of both 2022 and 2023, a range of 20 points across the file.

Two years and a month without an update

The file was last updated on August 14, 2024, 763 days before this page read it, and its newest period ended March 31, 2024, 899 days before. That is the state of the record, not a statement about the program: the city’s Payments file (s4vu-giwb), wider in scope than this one, recorded $5.72 billion paid on contracts in 2025 when this desk read it on August 7, 2026. What that file cannot supply is this one’s subject — the MBE and WBE share of purchasing-department payments — which this file carries for no period after March 2024. It also warns readers itself that its figures are “a snapshot in time and subject to change,” so the final 24.7 percent is a low reading in a series that was never described as final.

What the file confirms, and what it cannot tell you

Confirmed, as filed: for each period, total payments, the payments to MBE and WBE firms, the two categories separately, and the construction and non-construction split. The columns read here do not show: any firm’s name or number; payments on contracts awarded outside the Department of Procurement Services, which the file excludes; the city’s participation goals, which this file does not contain; or why any period moved. Small rounding differences sit inside the file too — in five periods the construction and non-construction totals miss their own total by a dollar, and in twelve the MBE and WBE figures miss the combined figure by less than a dollar.

Where the record lives

The payments file sits on the city’s data portal, where it was last updated August 14, 2024. Every figure here was computed from it as retrieved on September 16, 2026.

The bottom line

Over five years and a quarter of reporting, the file records 35.4 cents of every dollar it covers — payments on Department of Procurement Services contracts — as paid to MBE and WBE firms: 29.0 cents to firms in its MBE category and 6.4 to firms in its WBE category. The share climbed above 40 percent in four periods and fell to 24.7 percent in the first quarter of 2024, the last period this file reports. In the city’s separate file of contractors’ own business-diversity reports (a5x7-5y4m), read the same day as this one, 35 reports cover calendar 2023, none cover 2024 and eight cover 2025.

Two more questions the file can answer

How big is the swing between periods? From 24.7 percent to 43.7 percent, a 19-point range across 18 periods. And how much money does a point represent? On the file’s $7.44 billion of payments, a single percentage point is about $74.4 million.

Source: the city’s Minority and Women Business Payments file (fa8m-mqz6): 18 reporting periods from January 1, 2019 to March 31, 2024, retrieved September 16, 2026 and read whole.
Scope, from the file: the figures relate solely to contracts awarded through the Department of Procurement Services, and the file describes itself as a snapshot subject to change. Payments made on contracts awarded elsewhere in city government are not in it.
Periods, not quarters: three rows combine two quarters each (2019 Q1-Q2, 2021 Q1-Q2 and 2021 Q3-Q4), so the file holds 18 reporting periods covering 21 quarters, and every rate here is computed within a period.
How the shares are computed: payments to MBE and WBE firms divided by all payments in the same period or group, from the file’s own dollar columns. The file also carries its own rounded percentages; they agree with these to within a rounding step.
Not here: no firm named, no count of firms, no comparison with the city’s participation goals, which the file does not carry, and no claim about MBE and WBE payments or shares after March 2024, which this file does not report.

Computed by KCM Desk from the city’s minority and women business payments file, retrieved September 16, 2026. Human-guided and edited — about this desk. If you spot an error, corrections come first.