The greatest job creators in the United States of America are the small businesses and single proprietorships you frequent every day. Your support of local grocery stores, dry cleaners, barbershops, retail stores, and hundreds of other local businesses drives your local job market. Even more so if you are in a rural area.
Many small manufacturing businesses contribute to America’s export volume. While the largest employee-count companies have the lion’s share of export $ volume today, the small business export percent is predicted to increase by 2026 from 32% to almost 50%! This is great news for American workers and small businesses.
Why is this important?
The battle between Big Box stores and the local economy is a critical element in rural America. While Big Box stores bring some jobs, some healthcare, and hundreds of thousands of retail goods to rural communities with low populations, the net effect is another “giant sucking sound” of money out of the local economy.
It’s the Big Box stores that bring foreign goods to the shelves in your neighborhood and exports your cash to sustain foreign manufacturing operations. We need to reverse that trend.
Export American goods and import cash. That should be the goal of American manufacturing.
The Small Business Administration reports these key findings about local businesses:
$48 of every $100 spent at a small business stays local
When you spend $100 at a small business, $48 stays in the community, according to the Small Business Administration. Spend the same $100 at a big-box store or national retailer, and only $14 stays.
37% of Americans made more of an effort to shop local
In a May 2020 survey commissioned by NerdWallet and conducted by The Harris Poll, 37% of Americans said they made more of an effort to support local businesses as a result of the pandemic.
72% of Americans prioritized shopping local over getting the best deal
Deal hunting isn’t the only priority for shoppers. In a November 2020 survey by Union Bank, 72% of Americans said supporting small businesses was more important than getting the best deal. Plus, 43% said they were willing to spend $20 more on an item to support a small or local business.
In plain English, if you want to keep a hardware store within 5 miles of your home, go shop at the hardware store that’s already there. Don’t go to a Big Box store 12 miles away unless it’s the only place to meet your needs for product and prices. When you shop locally, someone in your town keeps their job, plus the money you spend goes to a local bank where another someone can keep their job, and, when you need to borrow money, someone at the local bank knows who you are and that you’re a friend of the community.
During the COVID pandemic, your local small businesses benefited from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds. This signature program for small businesses was the PPP, which distributed nearly $800 billion in 2020 and 2021 through 11.8 million loans to small businesses nationwide and saved jobs for hundreds of thousands if not millions of American workers. In many companies, a 30% decrease in income volume would have instantly triggered a downsizing of 30% of workers. This capsizing of American workers was forestalled by PPP funds which made it practical for companies to retain employees and weather the COVID-19 storm.
JP Morgan assessed PPP results by measuring the small business expenditure immediately after the receipt of funds.
“We analyzed the magnitude and duration of any effects the PPP had on business operating activity, as measured by expenses. Our findings shed light on the effects of smaller loans, in contrast to other studies focusing on loans greater than $150,000. Nearly 69 percent of PPP loans in 2020 and 87 percent of those in 2021 were $50,000 or less. We found that upon receipt of PPP funds, small business expenses increased by over 40 percent relative to a control group, with significant but declining effects over four months.”
“Finding 1: Upon PPP receipt, small business expenses increased by over 40 percent relative to a comparison group, with significant but declining effects over four months.
Finding 2: The impact of PPP loans on expenses was largest in April and May 2020, when small business expenses were particularly depressed.
Finding 3: The smallest firms experienced larger spending effects upon loan receipt, perhaps because they were more liquidity constrained than larger firms.
Finding 4: Restaurants may have used PPP loan proceeds to frontload expenses.”
Source JP Morgan: Did the Paycheck Protection Program Support Small Business Activity?
What does that mean in plain English? Yes, it was successful in saving American jobs.
When it comes to small business and the American worker: “Shop Locally.” It’s good for small businesses and for American workers.
Ross Perot supported the American worker and small businesses when he created the Reform Party. The Reform Party continues his legacy.
The Reform Party needs your help and support to initiate policies that protect the American worker and the small business that hires him or her! We will put your donation to work to strengthen American labor and American small businesses.
But the need is more than money.
Across America, people just like you understand that the two mainstream political parties no longer support democracy. They support the agenda of their party at the cost of democracy. The phrase “I was against it until I was for it” reminds us how frequently one political party is opposed to something and then later supports it when the benefits are there for them to take. Hypocrisy is the thread that stitches these two parties into one cloth.
The need is for you to speak to your neighbor who feels disenfranchised by both parties. The need is for you to discover people who want to join school boards, town councils, planning boards, economic development agencies, ambulance and fire commissions, and any other civic appointments and elections. Find them and tell them to reach out to the Reform Party. They have a home with us.
Rather urgently, the Reform Party needs your kitchen-table politics and your cracker-barrel conversations to talk about the Reform Party to those who don’t know we exist.
If you are able, contribute your time and your money. Not everyone can. So, if you can contribute on behalf of others, please do.
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