NFIB’s chief economist, Bill Dunkelberg, testified March 13 before the Senate Finance Committee regarding “Innovative Ideas to Strengthen and Expand the Middle Class.”
In testimony during the hearing, Dunkelberg told members that the best way to strengthen the middle class is to support small businesses.
“Small businesses are a major source of economic activity and job creation in the economy, but small businesses have struggled to recover from the recession,” said Dunkelberg. “The ‘middle class’ includes millions of small business owners who compete with each other for the business of consumers. And most of the 6 million employer firms provide tens of millions of jobs to the middle class, people who want a job and want to earn a living. The best way to help the middle class or those who want to join it is to provide job opportunities in the private sector where they earn their way by producing value.”
As NFIB’s Small Business Economic Trends report indicated earlier this week, small-business owners see Washington as an impediment to growth—citing uncertainty created by the healthcare law, the EPA, the minimum wage, and tax reform as reasons that small business optimism remains at historic lows.