# Webpage evidence extension — October 3, 2026

The page at `/deep-dives/small-business` extends the September 30 dossier using sources published before that cutoff. Retrieval date is October 3; measurement years remain explicit.

## New calculations

`build-web.py` reads the pinned revised 2022 SUSB metro file, selects the 387 rows labeled Metro Area (excluding Micro Area), and calculates a job-weighted metropolitan benchmark: **47.457%** of employer jobs at enterprises with fewer than 500 employees; **16.504%** at enterprises with fewer than 20. This is metropolitan America, not a complete United States total. Jobs can be summed across geographies; firm counts cannot (multi-location enterprises recur).

Peer industry standardization fixes each metro's weights to Portland's employment distribution across 19 broad NAICS sectors. Within-sector under-threshold shares are multiplied by those weights and summed. NAICS99 is omitted; coverage is 1,084,470 / 1,084,535 = 99.994% of Portland jobs. All comparison cells are published numerical values with G/H/J noise flags, not suppression imputations. This controls broad industry composition only: detailed subsectors, enterprise age, headquarters patterns, population, labor force and policy selection remain different. It is descriptive, not a causal estimate or a robust global ranking. For fewer than500 workers the standardized peer range is 43.3–50.2%; Portland remains highest among these eight comparators, but small margins should not be overinterpreted.

## Additional reviewed evidence

- Prosper Insights & Indicators2025, printed142 / PDF148, Table4.14: IBRN FY24–25 clients691, BIPOC70%, women/gender expansive69%, newbusinesses135, physical locations73, loans42. These are reported counts, overlapping outcomes and not controlled impacts. Distinct from621 prior-year clients and759 OSB first-year clients.
- Same report printed119 / PDF125: over400 grants, $4m to smallbusinesses, $800k to nonprofits in development/investment programs. Summary $37m combines grants/loans approved/awarded, not annual grant spending. Do not add headline totals or assign all of Prosper's agency budget to smallbusinesses.
- Federal Reserve2026 report: 6,525 national convenience-sample employer respondents; customer acquisition is the leading operational challenge. Financing outcomes42%full /36%partial /22%none among applicants. AI module optional, about81% answered;46% report use. These are national signals, not city prevalence.
- City Revenue official guidance and April8 adoption announcement:2026 city gross-receipts exemption threshold$75k,2027$100k. Annual city/county exemption filing persists. Thresholds differ from the income tax base.
- Census May2026 BTOS AI article: wider question and different sample explains why adoption measures differ. Do not chart SBCS46% and BTOS17–20% as a time series.

## Research status

This is a deeper visual investigation, not a claim to have crawled the entire web. Existing68-source library plus this supplement contains screened, reviewed and unresolved evidence with status labels. Proprietary CoStar aggregates and Chamber Infogram inputs remain independently unreproduced. City QCEW size-unit ambiguity, OSB geographic-total gap, Chamber20%versus28%, absent owner-profit/benefit data and causal program evaluation remain explicit.

No interviews or records requests were sent. No program is portrayed as accepting applications without checking its current program page. The proposed policy costs are scenarios, not official budgets.