Our Research in Colorado
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. Our poll of Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas small business owners reveals strong support for legislative solutions that would remove barriers for justice-impacted individuals by making reforms to occupational licensing and debt-based driver’s license suspensions. These politically diverse small business owners believe these measures would enable employers to tap into an underutilized workforce and open up opportunities for entrepreneurship.
As entrepreneurs continue to navigate business and economic challenges stemming from pandemic, Small Business Majority surveyed small business owners and operators in Colorado to assess business conditions and the rising costs of healthcare.
During a series of three focus groups across the state of Colorado, Small Business Majority facilitated discussions with a variety of small business owners and self-employed workers to better understand their personal experiences that could inform policy conversations regarding Medicaid expansion, healthcare costs and coverage. These roundtable discussions occurred while COVID-19 dramatically impacted business and local economies. While the pandemic’s effect was often brought up by participants, this issue brief focuses on the broader impact of Medicaid expansion and of small business owners’ experiences and observations about Medicaid expansion and health insurance.
The Colorado state legislature is considering a bill that would make Colorado the seventh state in the country to establish a program guaranteeing access to paid leave to care for a newborn child or a sick family member. Small business owners and their employees are particularly affected by the current lack of access to paid family leave as many small businesses can’t afford to offer robust benefits, putting them at a disadvantage with their larger counterparts. Small business has been central to ongoing debates over the legislation, and new polling sheds light on their views on the proposal and their struggles to offer access to paid family and medical leave benefits.
On December 15, Small Business Majority released a new scientific opinion poll that found a majority of Colorado small businesses believe business owners should not be allowed to deny services to LGBT individuals based on the owner’s religious beliefs, including for wedding-related services.
Colorado small business owners soundly reject efforts to increase the interest rates lenders can charge on certain consumer loans, and the results of a new Small Business Majority poll of state small business owners strongly suggest state legislators who support such increases would pay the price at the election booth.
Small businesses account for a significant share of Colorado’s economy. For every one large business in Colorado, there are 179 small businesses diligently working to reenergize the state’s economy: Small firms make up 99% of the state’s employers. These entrepreneurs are doing everything they can to hire, grow and move their businesses and the state’s economy forward.
Scientific opinion polling reveals small business owners in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico believe protecting their region’s natural assets is one way we can enhance the financial success of small business
Small businesses are the lifeblood of our nation’s workforce. We depend on them to keep local communities and economies thriving, which in turn boosts our national economy. But in the current fiscal climate, many of them are having a hard time turning a profit.