The Iowa Caucus is approaching quickly. If you attend campaign rallies for the candidates or listen to TV ads you will almost never hear anything about small business.
But in reality, America’s small businesses are the driver of our economy. Consider these facts from the Small Business Administration (SBA) as outlined in February 2006:
10. Small businesses make up 99.7 percent of all United States employers.
9. Small businesses create more than 50 percent of the American nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
8. Small patenting firms produce 13 to 14 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms.
7. The more than 24 million small businesses in the United States are located in every community and neighborhood.
6. Small businesses employ 50.1 percent of the United States’s non-farm private sector workers.
5. Home-based businesses account for 53 percent of all small businesses.
4. Small businesses are 97 percent of America’s exporters and produce 26 percent of all export value.
3. United States saw an estimated 580,865 new small firms with employees start-up in the last year measured.
2. There are approximately 4,115,900 minority-owned businesses and 6,492,795 women-owned businesses in the United States, and almost all of them are small businesses.
1. The latest figures show that small business creates 65 percent or more of America’s net new jobs.
I encourage you to find out where the candidates stand on America’s small business issues. It’s an issue vital to our economy. You are unlikely to find an express position regarding small business on any of the major candidates’ Web sites, so you will need to ask them. Seriously, can anyone tell me where their candidates stands on SPECIFIC small business issues?