Bloomberg 2020
January 5, 2020

MIKE BLOOMBERG UNVEILS INITIATIVES TO SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESSES AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACROSS THE COUNTRY

San Diego, California — January 5, 2020 — Beginning on Sunday and in cities across America this week, Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg will outline his strategy to support small businesses and entrepreneurship. Mike’s initiatives will make it easier to start and grow a new business, eliminate bureaucracy, and connect entrepreneurs with the resources they need to succeed. Mike will also ensure all entrepreneurs, particularly women, minorities, and veterans, receive fair access to the support, capital, and resources they need to thrive.

By contrast, President Trump has turned his back on America’s aspiring entrepreneurs through cuts to programs, like microloans and Small Business Development Centers, that directly help small businesses. The effects of this dysfunction and neglect have been disastrous. During the first three years of the Trump Administration, black-owned businesses have accounted for only 2% of financings under the SBA’s Small Business Investment Company program while women-owned businesses received only 2.2% and veteran-owned businesses received only 0.3% of financings.
 
Mike has a record of success creating jobs and supporting entrepreneurs and small businesses. Mike created New York City’s Department of Small Business Services, which set up Business Solution Centers in all of the city’s five boroughs to help entrepreneurs identify opportunities, craft business plans, get access to capital, navigate government bureaucracy, and even find employees. The department also focused on getting minority and women-owned businesses certified to compete for city contracts, an effort that resulted in the awarding of more than $3.4 billion in contracts to certified firms. The number of contracts awarded to women and minority-owned businesses quadrupled, from 800 to 3,700, between 2001 and 2013.  

"Small businesses are the engine of the American economy, and to start firing on all cylinders, we need to do more to help entrepreneurs start and grow companies," said Mike Bloomberg. "My administration will remove the roadblocks and bureaucratic red tape that prevents so many start-ups from getting off the ground -- and we will also help to provide the financial resources and mentorship that first-time entrepreneurs need to get started."

The key pillars of Mike’s plan include:
 

• Supporting Local Business Solution Centers for Entrepreneurs. Mike will provide funds for cities and towns to establish and/or strengthen entrepreneurship centers in their communities. This includes making funding flexible, so cities can innovate to meet local needs - for example, by creating pop-up centers in high-need communities, or developing mobile apps that allow entrepreneurs to set up businesses seamlessly and conveniently - and offering targeted matching funds to create or expand small-business incubators and affordable shared workspaces in local industries such as clean technology, advanced manufacturing, and food production. 

 

• Creating a User-Friendly Small Business Administration. Mike will consolidate, streamline, and expand federal support for small businesses in the Small Business Administration (SBA), creating simplified access for entrepreneurs that makes federal programs easier to navigate, while eliminating unnecessary bureaucratic roadblocks that work against entrepreneurs and undermine their potential for success. This includes increasing the SBA’s budget for the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program, which licenses private providers of equity capital and offers subsidized financing to help grow small businesses, and focusing those funds on  underserved and distressed communities and advanced industries, which have a particularly beneficial impact in terms of jobs and economic growth. 

 

• Extending Opportunity to Everyone. Mike will ensure that all entrepreneurs, especially women, minority and veteran business owners, are given fair access to the support, capital and mentorship they need to succeed. That includes encouraging local Business Solution Centers to certify women, minority, and veteran-owned businesses to bid for government contracts, and ensuring fair access for those businesses to capacity-building support so that they can compete for larger contracts. In addition, Mike’s plan includes support for specialized services for underrepresented groups by expanding and improving on models like the 8(a) Business Development program and expanding the Small Business Administration’s “Boots to Business” educational program to connect veteran entrepreneurs, while measuring outcomes and focusing funding on the most successful providers. 

 
Over the course of the week, Mike will visit small businesses in several cities, meet with small business owners and entrepreneurs, learn about their challenges, and share details of his  plan to grow America’s small businesses.

A fact sheet is available for download here.