
Pitting small businesses against the minimum wage workforce is not working. All that fight will achieve is a win for the Walmarts, Dollar Generals, and Amazons of the world.
To raise the wage floor and win this argument, In the Fight for $15, we need to grow our coalition and include small business owners. Our current economy works against entrepreneurs, small business owners, and workers alike, but it doesn’t need to stay like this.
You and I, and everyone else, can band together in the fight for a livable wage. We can demand that we raise the federal minimum wage to $15 while also demanding that America’s small businesses are empowered and given what they deserve.
When I’m in the United States Senate, I promise to strengthen the Small Business Administration with funding to ensure that our small businesses can be allies in our fight to increase the minimum wage.
To ensure that America thrives, we need a significant restructuring of the economy. We need to move away from subsidizing monopolies that drive mom-and-pop businesses into bankruptcy. Entrepreneurs and small businesses alike are hungry for the best workers and talent. But they can’t afford to attract workers because they can’t afford to compete with massive corporations. Meanwhile, those very same corporations like Walmart and Amazon win out and only further harm the small businesses. This cycle is crippling the American economy while empowering the monopolies and oligarchies to further oppress those who can barely survive.
The good news is that we have the tools we need to get the economy working again, for us, not them! We can use anti-trust laws to break up the monopolies that are engaged in competition-killing practices. We can increase the funding for the Small Business Administration and help small businesses pay competitive wages and reward talent. And we can enhance our credit scoring system to enable entrepreneurs to take those risks when launching small businesses without potentially ruining their entire future.