A guide to ending America's jobs emergency by accelerating the true engine of job creationstart-upsFour years after the end of the Great Recession, 23 million Americans remain unemployed, underemployed, or have left the workforce discouraged. Even worse, Washington policymakers seem out of ideas.
Where the Jobs Are: Entrepreneurship and the Soul of the American Economy shows how America can restore its great job-creation machine.
Recent research has demonstrated that virtually all net new job creation in the United States over the past thirty years has come from businesses less than a year oldtrue "start-ups." Start-up businesses create an average of three million new jobs each year, while existing businesses of any size or age shed a net average of about one million jobs annually.
Unfortunately, the vital signs of America's job-creating entrepreneurial economy are flashing red alert. After remaining remarkably consistent for decades, the rate of new business formation has declined significant in recent years, and the number of new jobs created by new firms is also falling.
InWhere the Jobs Are, the authors recount the findings of a remarkable summer they spent traveling the country to meet and conduct roundtables with entrepreneurs in a dozen cities. More than 200 entrepreneurs participatedexplaining in specific and vividly personal terms the issues, frustrations, and obstacles that are undermining their efforts to launch new businesses, expand existing young firms, and create jobs. Those obstacles include a dangerously underperforming education system, self-defeating immigration policies that thwart the attraction and retention of the world's best talent, access to capital difficulties, a mounting regulatory burden, unnecessary tax complexity, and severe Washington-produced economic uncertainty.
Explains how start-ups are different from existing businesses, large or small, and why they represent the engine of job creationReveals how policymakers' failure to understand the unique nature and needs of start-ups has undermined efforts to stimulate the economy following the Great RecessionPresents a detailed, innovative, and uniquely credible 30-point policy agenda based on what America's job creators said they urgently need
Engaging and informative,Where the Jobs Are reveals with unprecedented precision and clarity the major obstacles undermining the fragile economic recovery, and provides a vitally important game plan to unleash the job-creating capacity of the entrepreneurial economy and put a beleaguered nation back to work.
JOHN DEARIE is Executive Vice President for Policy at the Financial Services Forum. Prior to joining the Forum in 2001, he spent nine years at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he held positions in the banking studies, foreign exchange, and policy and analysis areas. His writing has appeared in theWall Street Journal, Financial Times, Politico, American Banker, and China'sCaijing magazine. Dearie lives with his wife and two children in Great Falls, Virginia.
COURTNEY GEDULDIG is Vice President of Global Regulatory Affairs at Standard& Poor's. Prior to joining S&P, she was managing director and head of federal government relations at the Financial Services Forum. Geduldig served as chief financial counsel to Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), handling a wide range of issues including financial markets, housing, banking, taxes, manufacturing, and international trade finance, and playing a key role in drafting and advising Senator Corker on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. She also spent two years as the deputy assistant secretary for banking and finance at the U.S. Treasury Department. Geduldig is a member of the Maryland State Bar and lives with her husband, son, and daughter in McLean, Virginia.
Foreword Norman R. Augustine ix
Preface Rob Nichols xiii
Introduction xvii
Chapter 1 America's Jobs Emergency 1
Chapter 2 Not Just Small Businesses . . . New 15
Chapter 3 On the Road with America's Job Creators 23
Chapter 4 "Not Enough People with the Skills We Need" 31
Chapter 5 "Our Immigration Policies Are Insane" 53
Chapter 6 "Not All Good Ideas Get Funded Anymore" 73
Chapter 7 "Regulations Are Killing Us" 107
Chapter 8 "Tax Payments Can Be the Difference between Survival and Failure" 119
Chapter 9 "There's Too Much Uncertaintyand It's Washington's Fault" 131
Conclusion 177
Afterword Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) 183
Appendix Summary of Recommendations 187
Notes 195
Acknowledgments 229
About the Authors 235
Index 237
