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BusinessUSA: New Website to Help Small Businesses and Exporters Navigate the Federal Government
Karen Mills
Post date: 02/17/2012 - 14:05

Today, the Obama Administration is launching a new online platform, BusinessUSA, to help small businesses and exporters of all sizes find information about available federal programs without having to waste time and resources navigating the federal bureaucracy. 

BusinessUSA, currently in “beta”, combines information and services from 10 different government agencies through one consolidated website and coordinate telephone support through a single 800#. The site already presents hundreds of business resources, in one place.

Whatever services a business owner is looking for, he or she can find it on BusinessUSA – whether it be support to grow a small business, export financing, counseling and training to help sell goods and services overseas, or various loan programs like SBA small business loans, USDA farm loans, and NOAA fishery loans.

To ensure that it is designed with the customer in mind, BusinessUSA was built with the active feedback of U.S. businesses and relevant online communities. To collect additional input from small business owners and entrepreneurs, we set up an easy-to-use mechanism to provide feedback to make the site even better.

It’s a “No Wrong Door” approach for small businesses and exporters, creating a common platform to match businesses with the services relevant to them, regardless of where the information is located or which agency’s website, call center, or office they go to for help.  The BusinessUSA initiative will modernize the federal government’s customer service channels and help streamline the process for today’s innovators and entrepreneurs to get their hands on information to help make better decisions.

As President Obama said in his State of the Union address, we need to give U.S. businesses every opportunity and tool to succeed. As part of his blueprint for an economy built to last, the President is committed to making our government leaner, smarter and more customer-friendly. BusinessUSA is an important step the Administration is taking to realize the President’s vision of a streamlined government that serves the 21st Century economy.

Karen Mills is the Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Expanding the Healthcare Tax Credit for Small Businesses
Karen Mills
Post date: 02/16/2012 - 13:20

Right now, small businesses across America pay an average of 18 percent more to provide health insurance than large businesses.  While the insurance exchanges included in the Affordable Care Act will bring these costs down starting in 2014, we need to make it easier for small business owners to provide insurance to their employees right now.  One important part of President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget proposal expands a tax credit that does exactly that.

The Small Business Health Care Tax Credit has benefitted hundreds of thousands of small businesses since the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010.  After listening to business owners around the country, the President is proposing to make the tax credit available to more businesses and easier to claim. The budget increases the maximum size of eligible companies from 25 employees to 50, proposes more generous phase-out provisions and simplifies the credit, making it easier to claim.   It is estimated that if the President’s proposal were enacted, the tax credit will benefit about half a million employers who provide healthcare to 4 million workers in 2012 alone.  Over the next decade, this proposal would provide an additional $14 billion in tax credits to small employers across the country.

These changes will help small business owners hire more employees and create an economy built to last.   Take for example, Mark Hodesh, who owns Downtown Home and Garden in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  He started offering healthcare about 15 years ago to attract and retain talented employees so that he could compete with bigger stores and to help address skyrocketing healthcare costs his employees were facing. 

In 2010, after qualifying for the small business healthcare tax credit, he got back nearly $9,000, almost 30 percent of his costs for offering coverage to 11 full-time employees. The money he saved helped him hire a new employee, and now, with 12 employees, his tax credit could be go up to about $10,000 if the President’s proposal to expand the tax credit is adopted by Congress. 

We know that Mark and most small business owners think of their employees like family and want to offer coverage.  The small business health care tax credit helps make that possible -- and the improvements to the tax credit President Obama is proposing will increase the number of eligible small businesses and make the process of claiming the credit easier. 

The sooner the President’s plan is implemented, the sooner small business owners across the country can benefit.  For more information on the tax credit, go to www.whitehouse.gov, www.healthcare.gov and www.irs.gov, which all have special sections to answer questions and help small businesses figure out if they qualify for the credit.

Karen Mills is the Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration

Urban Economic Forum: Investing in Women Entrepreneurs
Karen Mills
Post date: 02/03/2012 - 12:41

This blog is co-authored by Karen Mills and Marie Johns

Today we’re kicking off our Urban Economic Forum events in New York City.  The  forum, presented by the White House Business Council, the White House Council on Women and Girls and SBA, focuses on helping women business owners start and grow their companies. 

President Obama understands the importance of women entrepreneurs for the economy. When the two of us began our careers, only about 5% of businesses were owned by women.  Today it’s about 30% - and women-owned businesses are growing at a rate of more than twice that of businesses overall.  Here at SBA, we recognize that women-owned businesses will have a strong impact on creating jobs and leading our nation into recovery.  Women-owned businesses are creating an economy built to last.

For President Obama and SBA, the number one thing is to ensure women entrepreneurs have access and opportunity.  At SBA we have a number of resources designed to help women who own or are thinking about starting their own business.  For example, we have more than   110 Women’s Business Centersand 900 Small Business Development centers   across the country where women can receive comprehensive training and counseling on a vast array of topics. 

SBA also provides training and outreach events, including an online tool, to help small businesses take advantage of the Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract Program, which provides equal access to federal contracting opportunities for women-owned small businesses. The goal is to ensure that at least 5% of federal contracts are going to women-owned small businesses each year. 

SBA loans are three to five times more likely to go to women than non-SBA loans. We also help women access capital through our microloan program, which provides small, short-term loans to small businesses.  Women-owned businesses often need small-scale financing, so microloans are especially important for their companies.  In Fiscal Year 2011, approximately 54% of all microloans made went to businesses owned in whole, or in the majority, by women. 

The impact that women-owned businesses have on our economy is easy to see: they employ more than 7 million workers and generate more than $1 trillion in revenue each year.  It’s important they know the tools that the Obama administration and SBA provide, including capital, contracts and counseling, so that they can focus on growing and creating jobs. 

Today’s Urban Economic Forum will build on these initiatives with discussions and workshops on topics including ‘Investing in Women Entrepreneurs’, ‘Why Female Businesses Make Economic Sense’ and ‘Getting Capital to Start Your Business’.  You can watch it here live, #wheconforum.

We will also have a Speed Mentoring Session and an Entrepreneur Resource Fair to help women obtain business advice and access resources from the public, private, and non-profit sectors that will help them grow their businesses. 

We’ll have the opportunity to hear from women business owners from a variety of industries.  We’re excited to receive feedback from all of these impressive women and hear how we can better assist women as they work to start and grow their businesses across the country. 

Stay tuned for the rollout of eight additional Urban Economic Forum events in cities including Birmingham, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Kansas City, Columbus, Jacksonville, and Detroit.

Startup America: Celebrating One Year of Helping Entrepreneurs Start and Grow Businesses
Karen Mills
Post date: 01/31/2012 - 13:12

Today marks the one-year anniversary of Startup America, the initiative launched by the White House to celebrate, inspire, and accelerate high-growth entrepreneurship across America. 

Here at SBA, we’ve spent the year helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses and create jobs across the country – creating blueprint for an economy built to last.  From launching mentoring programs to a record year of helping entrepreneurs and small business owners access capital through loan programs and Small Business Investment Company program, SBA has worked with the White House and other federal agencies to build a more supportive environment for entrepreneurship and innovation. 

Many of the ideas that we’ve put into action came from small business owners themselves.  We joined with the White House and other government agencies and went around the country asking entrepreneurs for proposed solutions to their greatest challenges.  Our “Startup America: Reducing Barriers” roundtable events allowed us to hear from more than 1,000 small business owners about the problems they were facing.  We’ve heard your feedback and taken action.  Take a look at all that has been accomplished. 

We took these suggestions and are using them to reduce the regulatory burden, improve processes and access to information, and expand mentoring programs for small businesses.  Here are some examples of things we are doing right now to help entrepreneurs:

  • Empowering young entrepreneurs through the Student Startup Plan, by highlighting the improved terms of the income-based repayment program to help keep federal loan payments affordable.  Last year, the President proposed a plan to further ease student loan debt payment by lowering the income-based repayment to 10 percent of income, and the forgiveness timeline to 20 years. This change is set to go into effect for all new borrowers after 2014.

  • Committing up to $1 billion to Impact Investment Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs) over five years, to target emerging sectors identified as national priorities as well as economically disadvantaged areas. We licensed a $130 million InvestMichigan! Mezzanine Fund as the first Impact Investment Fund, and it is currently investing in high-growth businesses throughout Michigan.

  • Increasing access to mentoring programs across industry sectors and regions. We provided mentoring support to 100 clean energy entrepreneurs through last year’s Entrepreneurial Mentor Corps pilot program, and we partnered with the Veterans Administration to support returning veteran entrepreneurs across the country. 

We are excited that the President introduced the Startup America Legislative Agenda today.  From issues on capital formation to high-skilled immigration, the Startup America Legislative Agenda provides proposals to create greater opportunities for our country’s ambitious entrepreneurs.  This Agenda also includes tax breaks, including doubling the deduction for entrepreneurs’ startup expenses.  We know these provisions have important financial implications and can help entrepreneurs grow their businesses. 

Leaders in the private-sector are also working on many of these same ideas through the Startup America Partnership, an independent alliance of entrepreneurs, corporations, universities and foundations working to fuel high-growth startup companies.  The Startup America Partnership has aggregated over $1 billion in resources and business services that a startup can take advantage of now. 

In the first year of the Startup America initiative we’ve made great strides, but we need to continue to create an economy built to last.  We can’t wait to make sure America’s entrepreneurs – from those in manufacturing to clean energy and everything in between – have the tools they need.  Today’s announcements help keep the wind at small businesses’ back, but through the Startup America Legislative Agenda we can give entrepreneurs even moreresources to grow and create jobs.

Karen Mills is the Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Adminstration.

Rebuilding American Manufacturing in Central Pennsylvania
Karen Mills
Post date: 01/25/2012 - 16:07

Last night I had the honor of attending President Obama’s State of the Union Address as a member of his cabinet. In the speech, the President laid out his vision for an economy that’s built to last.  It’s an economy based on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values.  I had the chance see one of those pillars in action today.

Today I visited Always Bagels in Lebanon, Penn.  Always Bagels is exactly the kind of manufacturing facility President Obama was talking about in his State of the Union.  This is a business that’s growing, creating jobs, and driving our economy forward.  Always Bagels started as a retail bakery 20 years ago.  Now they are a major manufacturer with two plants.  Always Bagels currently produces over 400,000 bagels a day.  So when they say “Always Bagels”, they mean it!

Always Bagels has already been helped by this administration.  Two years ago, the firm got an SBA Recovery Act 504 loan to buy their second plant.  With the new plant, company president Tony Pariti, was hoping create 80 new jobs within three years—but Always Bagels has been so successful that they now employ over 100 people.

Thanks to policies like the Recovery Act, American manufacturing is creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s.  Last night the President proposed new tools to build on this success and make sure that small manufacturers like Always Bagels continue to have the wind at their backs.

He called for lowering the tax rate for companies that manufacture and create jobs in the United States.  He also proposed reducing regulations that get in the way of entrepreneurs who want to start and grow a business.  And he called on Congress to continue the payroll tax cut which gives millions of Americans a little extra money to spend at local small businesses.

These tools will mean more support for small manufacturers like Always Bagels, more good jobs and more products stamped “Made in America.”  We need to move forward and rebuild the economy.  We need to make sure that small businesses have the tools they need to grow and create jobs.  We need an economy built to last.