NASE in the News

Micro-Businesses Attend Kickoff Of “White House To Main Street” Series

NASE Members Invited To Attend President’s Speech In Allentown

Washington, D.C., December 9, 2009 – Micro-business owners in Allentown, Pennsylvania recently got a visit from President Barack Obama for the opening of the White House To Main Street tour. The Allentown stop was the first in a series of events across the nation focusing on job creation.

“Now, it’s typical that it takes time for job growth to catch up with economic growth. And it’s typical that it takes a little more time to come out of a recession when it comes to hiring. But Americans who’ve been desperately looking for work for months -- some of them maybe for a year or longer -- they can’t wait. And we won’t wait. We need to do everything we can, right now, to get our businesses hiring again so that our friends and our neighbors can go back to work,” said President Obama.

Dale Schaffer of Bethlehem, Pa. is the co-owner of Elysian Fields Specialty Florals. He was part of a group of NASE members that were invited by the Obama Administration to attend the event at Lehigh Carbon Community College in Allentown:

“As a small business owner, I would have liked to learn more about opportunities for grants and small business loans. The bank situation is very discouraging when you rent or lease a property for your business and have very little credit to show when approaching a lending institution for any financial backing. I would love to grow our business and have the opportunity to employ more people, but the current financial stress prohibits that at this time. Our goal is to maintain the current number of employees we have while also looking to the future with hope of growth and expansion,” commented Mr. Schaffer.

The self-employed represent approximately 78% of all small business in the United States and have consistently grown each year despite the ailing economy. The NASE asserts that any effort by the Administration and Congress to increase job creation needs to have a substantial focus on self-employment as a viable career option and the self-employed as job creators in our nation.

According to a November 2008 NASE online poll, 71% of micro-business owners reported that the slow economy was having a moderate to significant impact on their business. Click here for full survey results.