To: Michigan House of Representative Economic Development and Small Business Committee — Right to Start

Summary

Letter in support of Michigan House Bill 5463 from Right to Start, with Jason Grill, Chief Government Affairs Officer, named as the sender, addressed to the Michigan House of Representative Economic Development and Small Business Committee for the date listed as Tuesday, April 30th, 2024. The letter states that in Michigan, microenterprises make up more than 80% of all small businesses. It states that defining a microenterprise business in Michigan is important and that creating a Center for Microenterprise would give entrepreneurs a dedicated liaison and office inside state government. It also says the center should coordinate policies, cut red tape and track entrepreneurial data on government contracts.

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To: Michigan House of Representative Economic Development and Small Business Committee
Representative Jason Hoskins, Chair
Representative Kristian Grant, Majority Vice Chair
Representative Mark Tisdel, Minority Vice Chair
CC: All other Members of the House Economic Development and Small Business Committee

From: Right to Start
Jason Grill, Chief Government Affairs Officer
jgrill@righttostart.org
www.righttostart.org

Date: Tuesday, April 30th, 2024
Time: 9:00am EDT
Place: Room 326, House Office Building, Lansing, MI

Michigan House Bill 5463 – Letter in Support

New businesses create almost all net new jobs in the United States. Additionally, in Michigan,
microenterprises make up more than 80% of all small businesses and employ over 400,000
Michiganders. Microenterprises in Michigan create stronger communities, grow GDP, create
homegrown jobs, increase community wealth, diversity goods and services, increase lifetime
incomes, and fight inequality and poverty. Yet government processes and the system overall
make it harder on them to start and grow with many barriers. This has contributed to a startup
slump for decades in America since the 1970’s. Survey data from the Kauffman Foundation
shows that entrepreneurs are left out. 81% of entrepreneurs says that government favors big
businesses over them. 69% say government doesn’t care about them at all.

Nonetheless, the entrepreneurial spirit is deep in our DNA. 94% of voters – nearly
unanimously across party lines – say “it’s important to America’s future” that citizens have a fair
opportunity to start and grow their own businesses. However, 92% of voters say that starting a
new business today is difficult or very difficult. Young businesses create jobs, while older
businesses shed jobs. This policy sets the path to remove obstacles and barriers that hinder
entrepreneurship, as well as giving Michigan microenterprise businesses (those with 10 or fewer
employees) a crucial voice within state government.

This policy expands entrepreneurial opportunity for all. Defining what a microenterprise
business is in Michigan is important, additionally creating a Center for Microenterprise would
help entrepreneurs with a dedicated liaison and office for them inside state government. This
center’s goals should be focused around working to coordinate policies affecting
microenterprises and entrepreneurs, cutting red tape that hinders entrepreneurship and
growth, streamlining processes for microenterprises, and tracking important entrepreneurial
data and metrics on government contracts for microenterprises and new, young businesses.
Eventually they should encourage more government contracts to go to microenterprises and
young businesses in Michigan. One government contract can make a major difference on the
trajectory of a young microenterprise’s growth and offer real legitimacy for a newer business.

Microenterprises need at least one person at the state government level in Michigan working
on their behalf who eat, breathe, and sleep their issues and help them navigate and streamline
processes, as well as enhancing entrepreneurship as economic development in the state. This
center shall serve as a one stop shop, which assists and supports microenterprise businesses.

This policy is a pro-growth Michigan measure, which will remove barriers and advance
microenterprise opportunity, further homegrown job creation, community growth, and build a
stronger connection between microenterprise businesses and state government. Please support
this measure because entrepreneurs and microenterprises are critical to the Michigan economy
– for jobs, GDP, income increases, lowering inequality, decreasing poverty, strengthening
competitiveness – and it’s time we unleash the entrepreneurial power of Michigan’s citizens.


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