Washington, D.C., October 12, 2011 – With lawmakers shelving President Obama’s jobs bill in favor of breaking it into smaller pieces, Congress has little to offer right now from a policy standpoint to help kick start our economy. Glaringly absent from the jobs debate has been specific proposals that speak to how to encourage and support startups and the self-employed, our nation’s biggest job creators.
The National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) has introduced a National Self- Employment Initiative to get the conversation started.
“There is no doubt we need more Americans earning a paycheck and contributing to get the economy back on track,” said NASE President and CEO Kristie L. Arslan. “The NASE’s National Self-Employment Initiative provides a framework to lawmakers on how we can foster entrepreneurialism and allow new and existing businesses to flourish.”
The Initiative has four key parts, detailed below:
- Simplify the Tax Code – Prioritize simplifying the tax code and creating tax parity for self-employed businesses. Small-business owners must be their own Human Resources, Sales and Accounting Departments, among other tasks. They do not have the resources of big businesses who can hire teams of people to manage their affairs and keep them compliant with current law. A few small changes to the tax code would make a big impact for the nation’s smallest businesses.
- Financing for Start-ups and the Self-Employed - Access to capital is crucial to the growth of new firms and micro-lending is especially important to help bolster the self-employed. While last year’s Small Business Jobs Act promised increased funding opportunities through small community banks and credit unions, that program has yet to materialize, leaving business owners to rely on credit cards and their own savings to get by or expand.
- Teach the Rewards of Self Employment - Foster entrepreneurship education in secondary schools as well as colleges and universities. Make starting a business a viable career option for our young Americans and teach them the skills they need to take turn their ideas into profitable businesses.
- Creation of State-Led Entrepreneurial Programs - Assist all states in launching self-employment training programs for residents. These training programs should be available free to all unemployed citizens providing them with an avenue to create their own job, should they be unable to find one.
“The first step to creating jobs is encouraging out of work Americans to create a job for themselves through self employment. In this difficult economic climate, offering tax incentives to corporations to hire will not do the trick. The only viable path to economic recovery is by promoting the innovation and job creation that comes from new business startups,” commented Arslan.
Arslan recently wrote a commentary on the need for the National Self-Employment Initiative on the Huffington Post.