Let me start by saying that this post is my opinion, and maybe fear, about what will happen to small business in this country.
It seems like every time I turn on the television, I see that a new industry is asking for a bailout...I think the latest is the auto industry, but really, who knows by now...and I see our elected leaders planning ways to bail out big company after big company...and I wonder...what the hell are we doing to support small businesses and entrepreneurs?
We need a strong plan to support our small businesses, or we won't have any left. We are all looking at the big guys because their demise is so very apparent, but consider this:
• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
• Employ about half of all private sector employees.
• Pay nearly 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
• Have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually
over the last decade.
• Create more than half of non-farm private gross domestic
product (GDP).
• Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists,
engineers, and computer workers).
• Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.
• Made up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters and produced
28.9 percent of the known export value in FY 2006.
• Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large
patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large
firm patents to be among the one percent most cited.
(Small Business Administration, 2007)
It may not be as apparent when small businesses start to fail, but without attention, you can bet they will. What if we don't notice until the demise has reached critical mass? We will have a huge tide of unemployed workers, closing businesses, homeless families...I mean, is anyone out there as worried about this as I am?
Big business has had its chance...in fact, GM and other automakers have been bailed out repeatedly. How many times will we save businesses that make poor investments, don't support their workers and take trips to spas in California on their private jets while one hand is out, asking for money?
Don't get me wrong, I don't want the workers in these companies to suffer...so let's take the bailout dollars and invest in retraining programs and in supporting small businesses. I am even open to supporting a big business if it could show that it gave a damn about its employees and was fiscally responsible.
America, we need to wake up and start talking, even yelling, about small business...or we won't have any small business to yell about.
