Small Business Majority is enacting a comprehensive state policy agenda to ensure entrepreneurship is recognized as the lifeforce of a thriving and inclusive economy in California. Our state’s 4.1 million small businesses employ 7.5 million people, which amounts to nearly half of the private workforce.
Small Business Majority’s Illinois policy agenda outlines policies that advance and promote equitable pathways for entrepreneurship while centering small businesses as the key to a thriving and inclusive economy. The state’s 1.3 million small businesses employ 2.4 million people (about 44.1% of the private workforce), with firms without employees making up 80% of all owned businesses. Illinois small business owners are navigating workforce shortages, a childcare crisis and the end of a number of pandemic era programs that support entrepreneurship.
Small Business Majority has created a comprehensive state policy agenda to ensure entrepreneurship is at the center of a thriving and inclusive economy in New Mexico. It’s critical that state lawmakers enact short- and long-term policies to support and empower entrepreneurs by guaranteeing their access to capital, an infrastructure that can support their ability to offer quality jobs, and their ability to compete fairly now and in the future. To achieve these goals, policymakers should consider the following policy proposals.
Small Business Majority has created a comprehensive state policy agenda to ensure entrepreneurship is at the center of a thriving and inclusive economy in Colorado. The state’s nearly 690,000 small businesses employ 1.2 million people, accounting for 99.5% of all businesses in Colorado.
Small Business Majority has created a comprehensive state policy agenda to ensure entrepreneurship is at the center of a thriving and inclusive economy in Georgia. The state’s 1.2 million small businesses comprise 99.6% of all businesses in the state, and they employ 1.7 million residents—nearly half of all Georgia employees.
Small Business Majority’s policy agenda ensures that small business is at the center of a thriving and inclusive economy in Wisconsin and advances policies that promote equitable pathways for entrepreneurship. The state’s 461,000 small businesses employed 1.3 million people in 2021, and small businesses have historically driven job growth . Yet, small businesses in Wisconsin continue to face setbacks from the COVID-19 crisis and struggle to access critical financing and resources.
Although Jessi Burg loved her career in seasonal industries like environmental education, outdoor guiding and agriculture, she faced a big problem.
“I wanted to make a living wage,” she said.
With that goal in mind, the future Colorado entrepreneur thought about the small business owners she knew. They seemed to have more control over their wages, work schedule and life. This realization led her to found a landscaping business, Pears to Perennials, in 2016.
Gustavo Garcia Jr. contracted life-threatening viral meningitis as a child and ended up in the hospital as a result. But for Gustavo, something good came out of this experience: It inspired him to pursue a career in medicine and research. After studying immunology at the University of California, Berkeley, he went to work at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), during the Zika virus epidemic of 2015-2016, and played a vital role during the COVID-19 pandemic. His work at that time was instrumental to his career because it allowed him “to see the gap in preventative measures to combat these viral diseases,” Gustavo said.
Small Business Majority’s new national opinion poll of small business owners reveals that a plurality has benefited from government, private, or nonprofit programs designed to support a specific demographic group. This includes government agencies and federally-backed programs such as SBA’s 8(a) program, Women’s Business Centers and the Restaurant Revitalization Fund as well as private grant and loan programs, consulting through chambers of commerce, and support provided through business incubators and accelerators. These programs have helped them with general business success and growth, access to capital and one-on-one mentoring and guidance.
Caitlin Copple never thought she’d become a small business owner. “In college, I wasn’t a business major and didn’t take a single business class,” she said. “I was into activism and making the world a better place. But I’ve learned that if you start your own business, you have the freedom to do it differently than how it’s been done before even if there are not a ton of role models out there. One reason why I try to be visible as a queer single mom is because that was never an example of what a business owner could be.”
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