Propelling a New Economic Direction for Michigan

By Rob Fowler, President and CEO

Small Business Association of Michigan (SBAM)

Most job growth in Michigan comes from small businesses, especially fast growing companies known as “second stage” firms. In contrast, very few big companies – neither the ones that we have now nor the ones that are lured by expensive tax breaks to locate here in the state – are creating new jobs. The Edward Lowe Foundation reports that between 1993 and 2007, fast growing Michigan small businesses created 137,000 jobs. What did big businesses do? In that same time period, they lost 258,000 jobs.

SBAM has launched a major new initiative entitled Propelling a New Economic Direction for Michigan. This new economic direction focuses on entrepreneurial growth, small business job creation and a new state focus on economic gardening. Economic gardening means tempering the public sector’s traditional role of using tax credits and incentives to lure industry and business from outside the state, and instead emphasizes making Michigan welcoming and nurturing for the home-grown, high-growth small businesses that are proven to be the true job-makers. The initiative will aggressively hold the new governor and legislators accountable for supporting our home-grown small businesses.

We need Michigan to:

1. Create and commit to a competitive business climate

2. Stop picking winners and losers by targeting certain industries at the expense of others. Focus on helping companies get to the next stage of growth regardless of the industry.

3. Retool: develop the leading edge tools for economic development based on a deep understanding of entrepreneurial firms. Let’s lead the nation in this new strategy. It’s Michigan’s heritage.

During the early part of the Twentieth Century, at the birth of the auto industry, Michigan was the Silicon Valley of its day – the global leader in innovation and job growth. We’ve had a world class entrepreneurial culture before and we will again. We invite you to join our fight to set a new economic direction for our state by going to www.sbam.org/action.