State of the Union Emphasizes Key Small Business Issues

The president̢??‰?s State of the Union speech tonight touched on many of small business owners̢??‰? key concerns, particularly increasing consumer demand by strengthening the middle class, fixing our broken immigration system and continuing to grow the economy through innovation and investments in clean energy.

We̢??‰?re pleased President Obama highlighted the importance of small businesses to our economy in his address. Small businesses employ nearly half the private sector workforce and create two out of three net new jobs in the United States. Creating smart policies that support our nation's job creators and their middle-class customer base is the most common sense way to ensure our economy continues down a pathway to prosperity.

Many of the policies the president outlined are ones small business owners support. First, as our scientific opinion polling shows, two-thirds of small employers support increasing the minimum wage as a way to bolster our economy and decrease reliance on taxpayer funded assistance. Consumer demand is key to small business success, and the best way to create that demand is to increase the amount of disposable income people have to spend. And, we look forward to lawmakers acting on the president̢??‰?s call to close tax loopholes as part of smart tax reform and to growing our economy through investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, broadband and research and development.

Additionally, small businesses support passing comprehensive immigration reform. Our polling found small business owners recognize our current immigration system isn̢??‰?t working and know that fixing it will help them foster a better workforce and encourage immigrant entrepreneurship. What̢??‰?s more, small businesses stand behind policies to spur innovation via a clean energy economy and measures to address the destructive economic effects of climate change.

The president̢??‰?s speech tonight highlighted many of the issues small employers see as vital to our economic success. We look forward to seeing action from lawmakers on these policies in the coming months.