A New Plan for America’s Would-be Entrepreneurs

Businesses that are less than five years old create nearly all of the new net jobs in the American economy, even during periods of economic downturn. Yet, the rate of new entrepreneurs starting and building a business has been essentially flat for the past 20 years.

This is astonishing when you consider that more than 60 percent of Americans have a dream business in mind they would love to create, and more than 40 percent would quit their job and start a business in the next six months if they had the tools and resources they needed.

Recently the Kauffman Foundation, in collaboration with more than 30 entrepreneurship advocacy groups, and with the support of NACCE, launched a coalition called Start Us Up and released a policy plan called America’s New Business Plan (ANBP) to provide policymakers at the local, state, and federal level a bipartisan roadmap for reducing barriers to entrepreneurship, thereby spurring more startups across the country to create new jobs.

Specifically, ANBP encourages policymakers to:

• Promote economic development efforts that support local business owners and not just incentives to attract outside businesses.
• Prioritize the development of supportive ecosystems that help everyday Americans start businesses and cut red tape that holds people back.
• Extend access to funding streams beyond the coasts to deep within the heart of the country, including rural areas, to better serve communities that lack access to capital and populations that are underrepresented as entrepreneurs.
• Support policies that connect entrepreneurs to mentors and programs that teach entrepreneurs the skills needed to successfully launch a business. Encourage a strong current of new entrepreneurs and their employees by embedding real-world learning in classrooms and sharpening workplace skills such as communication, problem-solving, judgment, and decision making.
• Ensure the next generation of entrepreneurs is not locked out of opportunities to improve economic situations by addressing real financial concerns that limit risk-taking.

Why Now?

Seventy-nine percent of new business owners feel they did not have support from the government to start their businesses. Sixty-six percent of entrepreneurs agree that government incentives favor established businesses over new businesses.

Although entrepreneurship increases jobs, innovation, and productivity, all too often, policymakers are focused on the needs of big business at the expense of small start-ups.

Making it easier for individuals to start their own businesses regardless of who they are or where they are from is essential to creating economic growth. America’s New Business Plan strives to ensure that anyone with a good business idea has access to the opportunity, funding, knowledge, and support to make their dream of starting a business a reality.

This plan outlines a mix of straightforward steps, along with more ambitious ways policymakers can take steps to strengthen access to entrepreneurship. For more information, visit www.Kauffman.org and follow the Foundation on www. Twitter.com/KauffmanFDN and www.Facebook.com/KauffmanFDN. Visit https://www.startusupnow.org for more information about Start Us Up Now.