The SBA Office of Advocacy recently released an article revealing that small business ownership helps to increase a household's overall well-being. A report released on January 28, 2010 finds that households owning small firms during 1998-2007 were more likely to be in the top 50% in income and wealth.

To view the full article, please visit - http://sba.gov/advo/research/rs357tot.pdf by George W. Haynes.

Finding highlights included:

* Households owning any business were significantly more likely to be high income earners in 2007 than in 1998; the largest percentage gain was among owners with more than one business

* In the latter part of the period - between 2004 and 2007 - the likelihood that households owning a small business had a high income increased by 4.2 percent and the likelihood that they had a high level of wealth increased by more than 20 percent, compared with increases of 2.1 and 5.2 percent, respectively, in households not owning businesses.

* The characteristics of households and businesses were somewhat different in 1998 than in 2007. By 2007, high income households were headed by younger people, while higher wealth households were headed by older people.

* From 1998 to 2007, households not owning a business increased read mean wealth by just under 40 percent; the comparable increase for those owning a small business was 63.4 percent.

- Office of SBA

For a comlete copy fo the study, visit the Office of Advocacy website at www.sba.gov/advo.

WIPP does not endorse any candidate. We do encourage women to run for political office, from community boards to federal elective office. In fact, a recent nationwide survey commissioned by WIPP, told us that our members place a great deal of importance in electing more women to public office, and feel that the country would be better governed if more women, and specifically more women business owners, were in office.  

However, it is WIPP's mission, solely, to educate women business owners on the economic issues before Congress that affect their business growth - and they , alone, will decide which candidate to support.

According to the survey, women small business owners are nearly unanimous in their intent to vote in the November election, and a majority feel that they have some degree of influence on the outcome of the election.   At this point, they are fairly evenly divided between the two candidates, and one in six are undecided. They are similarly divided over which candidate would be best for small business.

The economic picture is the top issue for small businesses today, followed by other pocket book concerns like taxes and gas prices. WIPP worked together with 30 small business organizations this past year to develop an Economic Blueprint. WIPP and its partners are united on six economic areas that are essential to our economic growth: health care, procurement, taxes, access to capital, energy and telecommunications, and the Blueprint is our call to action to Congress. We call upon Congress to adopt the principles contained in the Blueprint, as they are essential for small business growth. The Blueprint represents our action plan to remove the constraints that inhibit the success and growth of women enterprises.   

Yesterday, Ann Blackburn and I had the opportunity to meet with 40 innovators and entrepreneurs at an hour and a half business roundtable with Carly Fiorina, candidate for the United States Senate from California. 

Among attendees was Saman Dias who is heading Entrepreneurs and Small Business for Carly. Saman is a dynamic young entrepreneur and friend who cares deeply about the state of our economy in California who I will be working with her to help Carly throughout 2010.

You can link to the roundtable with innovators and entrepreneurs here - http://carlyforcalifornia.com/2010/01/carly-fiorina-hosts-town-hall-meeting-with-high-tech-entrepreneurs-and-innovators/

Among the discussion points was the President's stimulus package, the need to educate our children for 21st century jobs, access to capital for small businesses, and immigration policy. I found Carly to be engaging, energetic, charming, articulate, and a real problem solver. 

While Fiorina is perhaps best known as the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), what is not as well known is Carly worked her way through undergraduate and graduate school. A self-made woman, she started her business career as a secretary and went on to become the first, and to date, the only woman to lead a Fortune 20 company.  A year ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer and her story over the last year is one of a survivor - someone who understands from personal experience how health care works - and someone who wants to give back in a larger way to her country.

Last week, Carly addressed the need to have more women involved in the policy dialogue at a California Women Lead reception in Sacramento -
http://carlyforcalifornia.com/2010/01/carly-fiorina-discusses-importance-of-women-in-politics-at-california-women-lead-reception/

Carly has been a friend to Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) for many years - I remember her participating in the Presidential Power Team calls on behalf of John McCain. 

Carly has graciously agreed to join us again on February 12th at 11:30 AM EST (8:30 AM PST) to discuss issues WIPP cares about.  For your reference, her website can be found at www.CarlyforCA.org. Watch for information on how to register. 

Join Republican Small Business Team co-chairs Robin Otten, Nancy Zurbuchen and me for what promises to be an engaging discussion with one of our country's most successful business women.

Judy B. Lloyd
Co-Chair, Republican Small Business Team

In a recent blog on theHill.com Kim Hart reported that "Amazon wants the FCC to let Internet service providers speed up some traffic to consumers as long as other content is not harmed in the process." WIPP has blogged frequently over the past three years on this issue and couldn't agree more.

Job creation is a priority today and unequivocally small businesses are at the core and ready to change the economic landscape in America. They can grow their businesses and they can grow jobs - but only if they are allowed the flexibility, the dependability and the reliability of the internet. No one wants to hurt content or services - but with the excessive and extraordinary demand on the networks with video streaming, the dependability and reliability of the networks are at stake. The service providers must be allowed to manage their networks - and small business owners, who extensively use the internet to manage their businesses, must be allowed to choose a service level that supports their growth.

Click here to read the full story.

On January 13th, I attended a Workforce Development and Employment Training hosted by Penny Pritzker, President's Economic Recover Advisory Board, and Chair of the Education and Training Subcommittee. Staff from the Treasury, Department of Labor, National Economic Council, Education, Commerce and SBA attended the session, held at the U.S. Treasury. The meeting addressed the following questions:

1. What do small businesses need from publicly-supported programs designed to increase skills and facilitate creation/retention of jobs?
2. What do small businesses bring to public/private partnerships focused on meeting the job preparedness needs of the 21st century?
3. What changes need to happen?
4. What are participants interested in doing to help make those changes happen?

The purpose of the meeting was to gather perspectives from industry leaders on how to maximize the impact of federal investments in workforce development. Objectives included:

1. Explore public-private partnerships in support of specific initiatives/pilot programs
2. Advise the President on this critical issue

Prior to the meeting, WIPP surveyed its membership because I wanted to bring up-to-date information from the small business community on job creation, education and workforce training with me. This information enabled me to carry your situation, your perspective and your solutions to the taskforce meeting.

The data: In terms of hiring - no surprises: First, overwhelmingly, you want to see consumer demand before you start putting people to work again; second, you want to see solid signs that banks are lending to small businesses again; and third, you want to see more opportunities in the federal procurement marketplace.

Next, I wanted to let the attendees know about the power, and economic strength of women business owners: In October, 2009, at WIPP's Annual Meeting, we released data from our Economic Impact survey, and I was able to report highlights to the attendees that if women business owners were their own country, they would have the 5th largest GDP, ahead of France, Germany and Italy, and that we employed 16% of the U.S. workforce.

The startling statistic for me, of course, was that 80% of the survey respondents were non-employer firms - that means that only 20% of women business owners employed 16% of the workforce in the United States. Why? I took advantage of our hiring and workforce surveys to query a little further and asked those that were self-employed that very question. While 30% did not want employees, 55% did not have sufficient cash flow. A further 15% felt they needed additional education before they hired employees. Because of its correlation to job creation, this was important information to present at the meeting.

In terms of data gleaned from the job creation survey:

1. 62% of women business owners feel that sustainable job creation is impacted by a well trained workforce, but 68% say their small business is not at a disadvantage and that they don't have difficulty finding employees. You hire on "potential" - meaning, you find the best possible employee, and train that employee to fit your company.
2. The major issue facing small businesses (70%) is that they cannot compete with big businesses.

Not to be forgotten, in terms of education - 66% believe the nation is becoming competitively disadvantaged and 96% are worried about the ranking of the United States among other industrialized nations (in regards to education).

So what are the problems facing women-owned businesses? The impediments are a lack of capital, educational tools and resources and being able to compete with larger businesses.

And what do you want?

1. To complete your own training, and receive tax credits for workforce training;
2. To have easy access to educational tools and resources and mentorship programs;
3. More collaboration between business groups to help you with training so you don't have to be the "expert" on everything, with an emphasis on innovation programs;
4. Public/Private partnerships, including more participation from community colleges and other public educational/training programs (SCORE, SBDC, Women Business Centers) - and work/study programs and regional technical training clusters.

Thank you for your quick response to the surveys and for all of your input. It was refreshing to participate in a session focused on small businesses and hear perspectives on workforce education. I am glad I was able to provide our solutions and the detail to support them.