Press Release: Accelerator for America Joins Call on Policymakers to Address 20+ Years of Stagnant Startup Rates
October 17, 2019 — American entrepreneurship and the rate of new businesses have remained essentially flat for nearly 20 years — a troubling trend due in part to women, people of color, and rural residents facing barriers when it comes to starting a new business.
Accelerator for America, as part of the new Start Us Up coalition of more than a dozen organizations organized by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, is launching America’s New Business Plan to provide policymakers at the local, state, and federal level a bipartisan roadmap for reducing barriers to entrepreneurship and spurring more new businesses across the country to create new jobs as a potential recession looms large.
America’s New Business Plan outlines four core categories of support that are needed yet are often denied to — or don’t exist for — entrepreneurs, especially women, people of color, and rural residents.
Opportunity: A level playing field and less red tape
Funding: Equal access to the right kind of capital everywhere
Knowledge: The know-how to start a business
Support: The ability for all to take risks
The plan outlines a mix of straightforward steps alongside more ambitious things policymakers can do to strengthen access to entrepreneurship, including:
Creating a single checklist of everything entrepreneurs need to do from a regulatory perspective to start a new business
Reforming immigration policy to establish a startup visa that authorizes foreign entrepreneurs to start businesses in the U.S.
Expanding access to capital
Providing a stronger safety net that includes things like more affordable health care options and student loan relief
“As policymakers debate taxes and tariffs, entrepreneurship remains America’s true economic engine and an area we can all agree on,” said Wendy Guillies, President and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation. “Policymakers can support entrepreneurs in creating an economy that promotes diversity, competition, and innovation where new ideas can take root.”
“Small businesses are the nation’s primary employer and are the number one creator of family wealth,” said Accelerator for America CEO and co-founder, Rick Jacobs. “We cannot rebuild ‘Main Streets’ or our middle class unless we make it easier for America's small businesses to thrive.”
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About Start Us Up
Start Us Up is a diverse group of organizations working together to eliminate barriers to starting new businesses. For more information, visit www.StartUsUpNow.org.
About Accelerator for America
Founded in 2017 by Rick Jacobs with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Accelerator for America finds and develops solutions to economic insecurity that it then shares with cities across the country to make national change from the bottom, up. Its tools are being used by more than 50 cities nationwide. Visit Accelerator for America’s website, here.