Prioritizing Small Business

“Taxes on capital, taxes on labor, inflation, bureaucratic regulation, minimum wage laws, are all – to different degrees – unnecessary slices of the wedge that stand between an individual’s effort and reward for that effort.” – Jack Kemp
During Governor Newsom’s November 16th press conference, where he announced that he would pull the “emergency brake” in the Blueprint for a Safer Economy and plunge almost all of California’s population back into the most restrictive tier, the Governor made a special effort to acknowledge the plight of small businesses. He explained that the coronavirus-wracked economy threatened the hopes, dreams and livelihoods of California’s entrepreneurs, and he pledged that the top priority of his January budget would be to “support our small businesses that are trying their best to weather this storm.”
This focus on supporting the state’s small businesses is much needed. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Small Business Pulse Survey (collected between November 9th and November 15th), 51.4 percent of California small businesses believe it will take more than 6 months before they return to their normal level of operations. Moreover, 2.3 percent of California small businesses have closed permanently while another 5.9 percent expect to permanently close in the next 6 months.