Exclusive: Fewer Young People Are Starting Their Own Businesses — Elizabeth Warren Has A Plan To Help

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s new plan for small firms, released exclusively to MTV News on Wednesday (February 19), pledges to increase funding for entrepreneurs, get rid of the red tape holding them back, tackle student cash advance debt, and fight the climate crisis — and give attention to aiding girls and people of color.


Beginning your own firm is hard — even for people of color and girls – nevertheless that hasn’t stopped 66 percent of millennials from saying they desire to begin their own agency and Gen Z from being even more entrepreneurial than that. Young folks are more likely to work non-traditional jobs like working for rideshare organizations, tutoring, and freelancing in tech and media, however the number of people under 30 who own their own firms keeps falling, because they often feel like they don’t have the support required to take the plunge into possessing business.


“A lot of politicians like to praise entrepreneurs and small organizations, nevertheless their actions show they are pro-big business,” Sen. Warren told MTV News in a statement. “And today, being pro big-business means, by and large, being pro-big agencies operated by white men.”


Partially, the struggle of entrepreneurs of color is due to overwhelming student cash advance debt, which in 2019, reached $1.56 trillion, an astronomical number that has contained numerous young people back — and affects Black students more than any other racial or ethnic sort. While Black and Latinx girls are starting their own agencies at higher rates than their white counterparts, doing so often requires cash, time, plus a network that will assist you along the way.


In her new plan, Warren lays out a roadmap for helping small organizations — especially corporations owned by marginalized people — get a fair chance at success. Her plan pulls from and works in tandem with her other, previously-announced policies; she cites her proposal to regulate tech in a task to help small agencies succeed online, and notes that her plan for affordable housing will combat the rising cost of living that holds several entrepreneurs back. Warren’s plans will make sure that small corporation company founders and entrepreneurs will have health insurance — and will lessen the burden of these having to issue it to their staff early on — through her Medicare for All plan.


And she draws on her previous promise to help young people with their student debt, although her new plan doesn’t stop at college education. It’ll also invest $800 billion in K-12 schools and provide universal child care, giving children the education they require early on to develop the talent that small organizations rely on — and supply support for parents who hope to begin their own firms in the here and now.


Other Democratic presidential candidates are doing their part to stop the spread of student cash advance debt: Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to cancel all student cash advance debt; former Vice President Joe Biden’s education reform plan will revamp the Public Service Cash advance Forgiveness Program so that public school teachers, government staff and those who work for certain non-profit companies can receive support; former Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s plan advocates for Pell grants and partnerships to lower the cost of tuition; Sen. Amy Klobuchar will make community college free, and supports refinancing existing student cash advances for lower rates.


Although even if student debt was wiped from the U.S. Education system, there really are still compounding issues facing young entrepreneurs and small agency company founders, particularly young ladies and people of color. People of color start their companies with far less money than their white peers; lack the same access to capital, resources, and markets as their white peers and and have much less access to the informal company training and networks that white people do.


“When I am president, we'll usher in the second generation of entrepreneurs with big dreams and level the playing field for small corporations — as a substitute opposed to sucking up to the big agencies that can hire armies of lobbyists and hand out maximum campaign contributions,” Sen. Warren said.


Her plan includes plenty of monetary stipulations to help level that playing field: She plans to make construct A tiny Organization Equity Fund that will distribute $7 billion in funding to issue grants to minority entrepreneurs — a move, she argues, that could generate and support 1.1 million jobs. She would also pledge half a billion dollars each year over the next decade to entrepreneurs who are building sustainable farm and food systems, including by funding food hubs, distribution centers, and points-of-sale that will boost the economy and health of rural and small town communities. Her plan will also strengthen Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) that invest in underserved areas, and she plans to overhaul worker training programs by scaling up apprenticeships tenfold with a $20 billion commitment over the next ten years, invest in new training programs, and build a first-of-its-kind federal grant program that can remove some of the regulatory roadblocks that small organizations face.


The monetary leanings of her plan also lend themselves to fighting the climate crisis: Her plan includes support for the Green New Deal, which would invest $10.7 trillion into tidy energy. This, she says, will not only create economic growth and create more than 10.6 million jobs, nevertheless will “create the market conditions to help small agencies and green entrepreneurs across a span of industries.” She also pledges to invest $400 billion over ten years to clean


energy statistics and development as segment of her Green Apollo Program; her Green Marshall Plan can support dictate exactly how to spend those hundreds of billions of dollars.


Her plan also includes establishing a new Green Bank that will invest $1 trillion in funding over 30 years into small companies and entrepreneurs who wouldn't otherwise qualify for established venture fashion investments — the only catch is that these entrepreneurs must be “on the front lines of the climate crisis,” which 83 percent of people aged 18-34 mention is essential to them as a political issue.


“It will take green entrepreneurs and small firms from every corner of this nation working with each other to rebuild our economy from the bottom up,” Warren’s plan reads. “As President, I’ll ensure our government works not just for the big organizations with big cash to spend on lobbyists and lawyers, although for entrepreneurs and small firm company founders with big dreams — who put their own sweat and hard work and savings on the line for the satisfaction of being their own boss and turning their ideas into reality.”