Small Business News

Senator Elizabeth Warren Announces Small Business Equity Fund Plan

With two dozen candidates currently in the running for the Democratic party’s 2020 presidential nomination, pundits have often ascribed certain qualities or lanes to those in the race. In the case of Senator Elizabeth Warren, she’s been seen as the biggest policy wonk of the group, offering several detailed initiatives she would hope to make reality were she to win the highest office in the land. Staying true to form, today Warren announced yet another policy plan, this time focusing on increasing entrepreneurship among minorities.

As CNN reports, Warren is calling her plan the Small Business Equity Fund. The program would provide grants to minorities looking to open small businesses. Warren’s proposal currently bears a $7 billion price tag, which she says would be paid for via her “Ultra-Millionaire Tax” that would tax 2% of every dollar of wealth above $50 million.

In a blog post titled “Leveling the Playing Field for Entrepreneurs,” the Senator spoke to why she felt such a plan was needed. She writes, “On average, Black, Latinx, Native American, and other minority households have a lot less wealth than white households. That means they have less of their own money to put into their business and less collateral to attract outside credit. The typical Black entrepreneur starts a business with $35,000 in capital — a third of the startup capital for the typical white entrepreneur — and other entrepreneurs of color face similar challenges.” As for how she arrived at the $7 billion figure, Warren said, “That’s enough to ensure that if Black, Latinx, and Native American entrepreneurs started businesses at the same rate as white entrepreneurs, we could fully close the startup capital gap for every single one of these new minority-owned businesses for the next ten years. That means supporting 100,000 new minority-owned businesses, which together would be expected to provide 1.1 million jobs.”

Warren’s Small Business Equity Fund plan is the latest in a series of proposals she’s dubbed her “economic patriotism agenda .” That agenda would see a potential Warren administration “pursue fundamental, structural changes in our government’s approach to the economy, finally putting American workers and middle-class prosperity ahead of multinational profits and Wall Street bonuses.” Meanwhile Warren’s fellow Democrats have detailed some economic policies of their own, including Andrew Yang’s universal basic income plan he calls “The Freedom Dividend” and Bernie Sanders’ Economic Bill of Rights. We can likely expect to hear about these policies and how each of the candidates will plan to help small businesses when the first round of Democratic Presidential Debates are held June 26th and 27th.

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