Business organizations call for SBA reform to address new business startup crisis

PRESS RELEASE

Contact:

Frank Knapp Jr.
803-600-6874
fknapp@scsbc.org

Columbia, SC, March 3, 2021—Today a national campaign was launched to focus Washington’s attention on the country’s new business startup slump.  “Reform the SBA” calls for expanding the Small Business Administration’s mission, authority, and resources to successfully address this national economic crisis.

In a letter to the SBA’s Acting Administrator Tami Perriello and Administrator-Designate Isabel Guzman, campaign organizer Frank Knapp Jr. writes:

Even before the COVID pandemic there was bipartisan recognition that the country was at a four-decade low in new business startups—a slow moving economic disaster that has developed during good and bad economic times….The campaign, Reform the SBA, is not a criticism of the Small Business Administration.  It is a recognition that simply doing more of the same will not move our nation along fast enough, or possibly not at all, to correct this small business startup crisis….Our nation’s aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners—particularly minorities and women in underserved communities—need strong, singular national leadership to break down barriers to starting and growing small businesses.

Reform the SBA” makes recommendations supported by a growing list of business organizations.  The recommendations address the mission of the SBA, needed research, access to capital, universal small business needs, regulatory reform, and federal procurement.

“Our business organizations want the Biden Administration to focus intently on pulling the nation out of our small business startup crisis,” said Mr. Knapp, President and CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce.  “If we are not willing to make dramatic changes to how we support entrepreneurship and small businesses, we risk becoming a nation where we all work for big corporations.  The threat to communities is enormous because economists tell us that all net new jobs are created by businesses less than five years old with four and fewer employees.”

The “Reform the SBA” campaign welcomes business organizations to support one or more of the recommendations.

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