Entrepreneurship
Why Julie Su would be a bad choice for U.S. Labor secretary
No Friend of Workers
Julie Su might not be the worst pick for U.S. Labor secretary in the 110-year history of the job, but many Californians might say as much if they had a chance to testify at her Senate confirmation hearing this week. Su, who for more than two years served as secretary …
New court ruling brings hope for gig workers stymied by AB5
California Assembly Bill 5, which should have been officially named state government’s War on Independent Contractors, recently took a well-deserved, though not full, thrashing in court. It’s a favorable ruling for workers who prefer independence over the structure of hired employment. Passed and signed in 2019, AB5 virtually outlawed gig …
Court Slows The FAST Act, But Business Exodus Could Accelerate
The FAST Act (AB257), which was scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, “makes it all but impossible to run small business restaurants” in California, says Joe Erlinger, president of McDonald’s USA, in an open letter that appears on the company’s corporate website. The top of the Jan. 25 letter, …
The Biden Administration’s Push to Take One of California’s Worst Ideas Nationwide
The Biden administration has effectively declared war on gig work, with its Department of Labor proposing a new federal regulation inspired by California’s controversial AB 5 law that would limit people’s ability to be classified as independent contractors and work as they choose. As Bloomberg Law reports, “The US Labor Department’s new …
Been There, Done That on Denying Americans the Freedom to Work as They Choose
Inspired by California’s controversial AB 5 – which was called “the worst piece of legislation to be passed and signed in California” by PRI’s Kerry Jackson – the Biden Administration is proposing new regulations to impose this agenda nationally. If successful, these policies would hurt entrepreneurship and minority economic advancement …
Empower Entrepreneurs To Improve Outcomes: The Case Of Integrated Care
Entrepreneurs, empowered by competitive markets, drive economic progress. When market regulations incentivize productive activities, entrepreneurs radically improve existing goods and services and create new products we never knew that we couldn’t live without. The wrong regulatory structures misalign these positive incentives. They thwart or misappropriate entrepreneurial efforts resulting in lost …
Handcuffing Freelancers Is Bad For Economy And Small Business
Addressing the persistent problem of inflation requires pro-growth fiscal and regulatory policies in addition to concerted tightening by the Federal Reserve. Unfortunately, President Biden’s plan to address inflation, as outlined in his recent Wall Street Journal editorial, would implement the exact opposite. Instead of empowering entrepreneurs to accelerate growth and improve prosperity, …
China Cuts Taxes, U.S. and California Want to Raise Them
Tax cuts are the “fertilizer applied to the roots of the economy.” That’s not Arthur Laffer talking, but China Premier Li Keqiang. Last month, China’s Finance Ministry announced that it would cut income taxes for small companies from 25 percent to 20 percent to boost the communist country’s slowing economy. …
Can California Make Room for Home-Based Businesses?
According to a recent report by the Public Policy Institute of California, a startling one-in-four Californians now works remotely, with one-in-seven blending office and home-based work. And if you ask Californians what they prefer, a third say they would like to stay fully remote next year, while a quarter say …
NEW STUDY: Pandemic Response Grew Government ‘Barriers to Opportunity’ for Entrepreneurs
Government actions to “help” small businesses in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic have worsened pre-pandemic government-imposed burdens to entrepreneurship, finds the final paper in the Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunityseries released today by the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute, a California-based, free-market think tank. Click here to download a copy …