Small Business News

| Stay Tuned NOW With Gadi Schwartz

Segment begins at 16:18.


"[Tariffs] will affect everything we do. We use steel and hose and bearings, and aluminum and wire. And not much of it anymore comes from America," said Sandra Payne.

| Roland Martin Unfiltered

Segment starts at 1:14:38 mark and lasts 9 minutes.


Mike Taylor, owner of Crosslane Construction, LLC in Lexington Park, Md., spoke about the impact of steel/aluminum tariffs on his business. He said a 25% tariff will increase the average cost to build a home by about $20,000 -- and he'll have to pass that cost on to consumers. Larger businesses, meanwhile, may be able to absorb the cost increase and undercut him on price.

| Associated Press

Sandra Payne, owner of Denver Concrete Vibrator, imports steel and other raw materials for her business. Her company makes tools to settle concrete and other industrial tools. Most of the steel the company uses comes from China, and she gets material from Canada and Mexico, too. “Small businesses run on very small margins. And so a 25% increase in any product is going to hurt,” she said. “And we can’t just raise our prices every time the cost goes up to us. So we are losing a lot of money.”

| Black Enterprise

Voice of Main Street, a quarterly opinion poll of entrepreneurs in the Small Business Majority network, says 53% of small businesses are concerned about tariffs adversely impacting their business, and 77% are worried about announced tariffs negatively impacting the U.S. economy.

| The New York Times

That includes Johnathon Bush, who runs a wholesale bakery in Chicago called Not Just Cookies. He has taken on a couple of large clients recently and moved into a bigger space to crank out their orders, so he needs to expand beyond his five core employees. But his ingredient costs remain unpredictable — egg prices can wipe out a baker’s profit margins — and rising wages mean that the stakes of each hire are greater. “I’m going to start with two because I want to make sure that everything’s good with the new business,” Mr. Bush said.

| New Hampshire Business Review

The Helping Small Businesses THRIVE Act is supported by Small Business Majority.

| The Sum & Substance

Alejandro Flores-Munoz, owner of catering company Combi Taco, said at the news conference that annual hikes in his insurance premiums force him to choose between paying more out of his limited resources, getting a lower-benefit plan or dropping coverage. The bill will reduce costs for small businesses and make it easier to grow, he said.

| Barn Raiser

“We know that small businesses are essential to the sustainability of rural communities nationwide,” says Alexis D’Amato from Small Business Majority, a nationwide network of more than 85,000 small businesses and community organizations…It’s no surprise the Small Business Majority found that small businesses support bottom-up tax reform.

| ABC 20

"As a small business owner, I know firsthand the value of second chances," said Pamela Frazier, owner of All in One Laundry Center & Services. "Convictions can lower a person’s wages by up to 52%, costing Illinois $4.7 billion in lost wages every year. Clean Slate policies are a solution to this issue."

| Inc.

New data out from Small Business Majority shows that more than half of small-business owners are very concerned about tariffs affecting their business, with 77 percent expressing great concern on overall economic impact…“Our purpose is to influence the health in families around our country, so our target markets aren’t necessarily wealthy people,” Clayson explains. “Raising my prices by even 30 percent to make up for his tariffs would bring what I have out of reach for my target audience.”

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