NFIB offers eight action items to reopen state’s Main Street shops, spur economy
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Patrick Connor, Washington State Director, [email protected]
or Tony Malandra, Senior Media Manager, [email protected]
OLYMPIA, Wash., April 15, 2020—The state’s leading small-business association today released its eight-point recovery plan for Main Street shopkeepers to reopen their doors and welcome back their employees.
“While it’s encouraging that Governor Inslee and his counterparts in Oregon and California have begun discussing a joint approach to restarting our states’ respective economies, it is imperative that all three governors move swiftly to allow more small businesses to safely and responsibly reopen sooner, rather than later,” said Patrick Connor, Washington state director for NFIB. “Too many small businesses are already teetering on the precipice of closing permanently, eliminating jobs deemed ‘essential’ by the workers who fill them, and the families they support.”
NFIB surveys show 92 percent of small businesses nationwide have been adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and state responses to it. Only half of small businesses expect to be able to weather closures lasting longer than two months.
With that in mind, NFIB provided the governor and legislative leaders a framework for both short- and longer-term actions the state should undertake to improve the chances small businesses will be able to resume operations once the “Stay Home – Stay Healthy” order is lifted.
Details of the eight-point plan can be read here. The eight points are:
- B&O, sales, and use tax-reporting and payment deferral
- Workers’ compensation premium deferral and forgiveness
- Unemployment insurance social-tax holiday and state of emergency unemployment assistance
- Limited sales tax holiday
- B&O tax-rate review
- Postponing state minimum-wage increase for 2021
- Delaying state ‘overtime rule’ implementation
- Increasing “Working Washington Small Business Emergency Grants”
Keep up with the latest Washington state small-business news at www.nfib.com/washington or by following NFIB on Twitter @NFIB_WA or on Facebook @NFIB.WA
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For more than 75 years, NFIB has been advocating on behalf of America’s small and independent business owners, both in Washington, D.C., and in all 50 state capitals. NFIB is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, and member-driven association. Since our founding in 1943, NFIB has been exclusively dedicated to small and independent businesses and remains so today. For more information, please visit nfib.com.
NFIB Washington
711 Capitol Way South
Suite 505
Olympia, WA 98501
360-786-8675
NFIB.com/WA
Twitter: @NFIB_WA
Click the graphic above to read the recovery plan.
