During his tenure as chairman of the SWPC, Johnson personally oversaw war contracts assigned to more than 6,000 companies. His tenure was a troubled one, and was marked by complaints from small businesses that they were not being awarded a significant portion of the most valuable wartime defense contracts. During 1943, firms with under 100 employees were awarded 86,000 contracts, about 35% of the total number awarded (241,531), but worth only 3.5% of the total value ($35.3 million) of all contracts awarded by the SWPC. Johnson responded by increasing the number of contracts to small businesses; however, instead of examining each company to determine what contribution each could make to the war effort, the SWPC began distributing contracts as a form of relief to prevent setbacks to small concerns with unused factory plant capacity.