According to statistics reported by Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, companies that are less than five years old were responsible for almost all of the net jobs created in the United States between 1980 and 2005. With such staggering statistics it is easy to see that without startups and new businesses there would be very little to no job creation in our country. What happened, though, after 2005 that made the creation of jobs from startups less prominent?
Steve Case, co-founder of AOL and a member of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, stated in the Kansas City Start that the development of startup businesses dropped 23 percent over the past five years. According to him, if development stayed at the level it was at in 2006, “we’d have 2 million more jobs. This really is a key job creator.” It is the opinion of many that with less regulations on new businesses and more lenient laws towards foreign-born graduates of U.S. universities, startups would be able to thrive more easily and job creation in the country would increase.
To bring attention to this opinion, Senators Jerry Moran, R-Kan. and Mark Warner, D-Va. wrote up theStartup Act that would make it easier for small businesses to start and survive. It is Moran’s hope that both Republicans and Democrats can come together and not think about the bill as a victory for one or the other. “There are too many shots taken at too many people around here too often,” Moran said in the Star. “That diminishes the chance of somebody’s success. We want us all to come together and have success, not for a Republican or Democrat victory, but for improving the lives of the American people.” It is his opinion that the “partisanship on Capitol Hill” has made it increasingly difficult to find solutions to the current economic issues.
According to Moran, Congress must act now to “put into place policies that remove barriers and help entrepreneurs succeed, so new businesses can grow and put Americans back to work.” One large part of the Act would be to loosen the strong immigration laws that are currently in place. The two senator’s Act would make it easier for foreign-born graduates from technical schools to stay in the U.S. after they graduate so that their skills can be used. According to the Star, the Startup Act would “create a new visa class for up to 50,000 foreign students who earned graduate degrees from American universities in science, technology, engineering or math. It also envisions a visa for up to 75,000 immigrant entrepreneurs who earned technical degrees in the United States and who create businesses that employ Americans.” With the many opinions on immigration laws that are whirling around Capitol Hill and the country in general, this may be difficult to pass but according to Moran and Warner, it is an integral part of the country’s job and economic growth.
SOURCE: The Kansas City Star, Kauffman.org
IMAGE: Kauffman.org
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