As I shared previously “Entrepreneurs, NOT GOVERNMENT MANDATES, Are The Key To Higher Wages!” government is NOT the best answer for either jobs creation or wage growth. Instead, successful entrepreneurs, starting and growing small businesses, ARE the best way to grow jobs, wages and our U.S. economy.
On Wednesday, the Office of Advocacy released Small Business Profiles for the States and Territories, the annual snapshots of state-level small business activity. The profiles report on the number of small firms, employment, and owner demographics. They also list each state’s top small business industries by number of firms and number of employees. The profiles cover the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the United States. They also provide limited information on the U.S. territories.
For example, in Illinois, where my executive recruiting firm is based, there are 1,169,961 small businesses, which employ about 50% of our state’s private sector workforce. Please go to both:
a) https://www.sba.gov/advocacy/additional-data-state-profiles-2014
b) https://www.sba.gov/advocacy/small-business-profiles-states-and-territories-2014
For a more detailed description of the make up of Illinois’ and other states small business characteristics and jobs creation statistics.
Unfortunately, most small businesses have been handcuffed by the growing taxes and regulations imposed upon them by their local, state and federal government over the past ten years. For example, many major city mayors from Los Angeles to New York are focused on improving wages through legislative means such as a mandated $15 per hour minimum wage. Last year fourteen states raised their wage floors. Furthermore, as I wrote previously at “Mr. President: NLRB Policies Are Killing Jobs!“ the current National Labor Relations Board is one of the most antagonistic towards business of all time! All of this has taken its toll on entrepreneurship and new business creation. For example, the percentage of Americans under 30 years old who were willing to risk becoming an entrepreneur recently hit a 24-year low! According to the latest figures from the Federal Reserve, only 3.6% of households headed by adults younger than 30 owned stakes in private companies. This compares with 6.1% back in 2010 and 10.6% in 1989, when the central bank began collecting this vital information.
Instead, government should follow the advice of most executive recruiters, including R&D recruiters, engineering recruiters, scientific recruiters, technical recruiters, IT recruiters and manufacturing recruiters, whose livelihood is based upon expanding jobs and wages. As a result, most in the executive recruitment field would advise to cut taxes, reduce new legislative burdens and scale back government to only the most essential activities such as improving our overall education. Not take a Big Brother approach that has been in vogue with the Obama administration.
What are your thoughts?
