Small business owners often don’t have the resources or legal expertise to fend off the anti-competitive tactics found in concentrated industries.
Ohio Small Business Owner Highlight
Ohio lawmakers are pushing legislation that would roll back the state’s energy efficiency standards, and one local solar business is fired up in its opposition.
Third Sun Solar, based in Athens, has seen first-hand how energy efficiency has cut costs, spurred innovation and created business opportunities. Eliminating Ohio’s clean energy standards, as Senate Bill 310 aims to do, would not only lead to increased energy costs, but could significantly hamper their small business.
Ohio Events
Since its inception more than 70 years ago, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has helped millions of small businesses across the country access the capital and resources needed to thrive and grow.
Ohio Policy
Small Business Majority offered testimony on the Ohio Fairness Act, which would revise Ohio’s nondiscrimination code to include protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. The bill will ensure that all of Ohio’s citizens receive equal protections in employment and public accommodations.
Ohio Research
Small businesses in Ohio are still struggling to hire and retain a ready workforce, persistent challenges in the wake of the pandemic.
While small businesses employ nearly half (46.4%) of the private workforce in the United States, many are struggling to hire and retain a ready workforce. One viable solution to their persistent workforce challenges is the passing of Clean Slate policies, which seal and expunge certain criminal records and allow justice-impacted individuals to seek employment opportunities and entrepreneurship. Individual state analyses of small business responses in Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas found widespread support for Clean Slate policies at the state and federal level.
Small Business Majority released a national scientific opinion poll—including oversamples in five states—that found small business owners oppose denying services to LGBT customers based on religious beliefs, rights to free speech or freedom of artistic expression. Further, the poll showed that a majority of small businesses support enacting federal and state laws to protect LGBT individuals from discrimination in places of public accommodation. Small business owners feel that nondiscrimination policies are good for their state’s business climate and their own business’s bottom line.