Mike Vlacich is the New England Regional Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. He is the first SBA regional administrator from NH. Vlacich is a first-generation American and the first in his family to attend college, graduating from the University of New Hampshire in 1995. He lives in Concord with his wife and two daughters.
When COVID hit, countless small businesses and their owners from across my home state of New Hampshire, throughout New England, and our nation understood we were facing an unprecedented crisis.
Front of mind for so many of these entrepreneurs was figuring out how to support their employees and meet customer needs. They adapted to the challenges of the pandemic, like so many others, showing the strength, resilience and creativity of our local small businesses.
In uncertain times, small businesses are pillars of communities across New England and the entire country. During the pandemic, they aggressively looked for ways to keep their employees on the payroll and their customers’ needs met. But, by nature of being small, locally-focused businesses, they endured some of the hardest hits.
As the economy recovers and life returns to normal, now is the time to invest in the local businesses that stood by our communities. Helping them grow, increase market share, add employees and raise wages is the number one task facing us now at the Small Business Administration. I was honored to be appointed by President Biden to serve all of New England as the Region 1 Small Business Administrator to do just that.
The facts are clear. We just had the greatest year of jobs growth in American history, bringing the total number of jobs created to 7.4 million since President Biden took office. Last year also saw the biggest manufacturing job gains since 1994. GDP grew in the president’s first year at 5.7% — the fastest rate since 1984.
The unemployment rate dropped from 6.4% when Biden was sworn in to around 3.8%, including the biggest single-year drop in American history. When the president took office, over 18 million were receiving unemployment benefits, today that number has dropped by almost 90%.
As our nation continues to build upon a historically strong economic recovery, the president, SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman, and all of us at SBA are committed to making sure small businesses share in this historic economic growth, not just the largest companies or international corporations.
The focus is shifting from emergency COVID relief to long-term investments, helping lower costs for small business owners and tackling long-run inflationary pressures that families feel at home. That’s why, in the State of the Union address, President Biden laid out an economic vision to create good jobs, build on economic growth, lower prices for the American people, make more in America, and rebuild our infrastructure and supply chains here at home.
In November, President Biden visited New Hampshire to highlight the importance of the recently signed historic Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Just weeks later, Administrator Guzman came to the state to highlight the critical resources provided by the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG), part of the one-year-old American Rescue Plan.
SVOG helped so many facilities throughout our state, like the Capital Center for the Arts, Palace Theatre and Derry Opera House, employ people and serve as vital draws for our downtowns. This is part of the national commitment to building a better America.
Our New England region is special, our states unique, but what unifies us are the Main Streets and the small businesses who make them what they are. All of our nation’s 32.5 million small businesses and innovative startups need access to the SBA’s critical federal resources to help ensure that great ideas from everywhere and anywhere can launch, survive and thrive. The SBA stands ready to help our nation’s entrepreneurs pivot and grow in the face of any challenge, seize new opportunities and make sure the dream of starting a small business is in reach for every American.
As President Biden said in his recent State of the Union address, “I can say we are moving forward safely, back to more normal routines. It’s time for Americans to get back to work and fill our great downtowns again.” Let’s all rally around this, for the good of our Main Streets, small businesses, and working families.
"Opinion" - Google News
March 16, 2022 at 06:10PM
https://ift.tt/vEPqRoi
Opinion: For the good of our Main Streets - Concord Monitor
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/XMQl7sV
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment