It was enacted July 30, 1953, originally as the Small Business Act of 1953 as Title II of Pub.

The Reconstruction Finance Corporation Liquidation Act, which was Title I of Pub.

Its function was and is to "aid, counsel, assist and protect, insofar as is possible, the interests of small business concerns".

It was amended again in 1988 with Public Law 100-646 requiring projections for procurement planning.

[1] It was amended again in 2017 by the Improving Contract Procurement for Small Businesses through More Accurate Reporting Act of 2017 (incorporated within the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, signed by the President on 12 December 2017),[2] and in 2020 by the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020 (Pub.