Press Releases

Congressman Glenn Grothman (R-Glenbeulah) hosted a Bring Small Businesses Back (BSBB) town hall event with Job Creators Network (JCN) and Oshkosh Chamber of Commerce at the UW-Oshkosh Alumni Center on Monday.

The event brought together 17 local small business owners, government officials and economic development experts, along with JCN CEO Alfredo Ortiz to discuss the most pressing issues facing these businesses, including over taxation, overregulation and lack of access to credit.

Popular topics of discussion during the event were tax reform, Dodd-Frank, a piece of legislation under the Obama administration that made changes to financial regulations in the U.S., workforce development and immigration.

Business leaders named the Department of Labor’s new overtime rule, which requires business owners to pay salaried employees making less than $47,476 per year time and a half for any hours worked over 40 hours per week, as one of the biggest challenges to remaining successful and profitable, while still keeping current employees on the payroll with adequate benefits.

“Yesterday’s town hall was a productive meeting of the minds that provided an invaluable look into the challenges faced by the small business owners and job creators in our community,” said Grothman. “Wisconsin’s small businesses and manufacturers are vital to the survival of our economy. Now that I know more about the specific struggles they face daily, I will work even harder to find solutions for these issues.”

Background:

According to a Job Creators Network (JCN) poll of more than 400 business owners, the state of small business is in far worse shape than topline economic data suggest. It finds that only one in five (19%) small business owners plan to hire additional employees over the next year. Fewer than one in three (27%) responded that doing business over the next year would be easier than the previous one.

View the poll results here. Read the white paper JCN released earlier this year assessing the state of American small businesses here.

U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman is serving his first term representing Wisconsin’s 6^th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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