Goldman Sachs has urged Donald Trump and Kamala Harris to include small businesses in their upcoming debate on Sept. 10.
The Investment giant launched a billboard campaign in Times Square on Sept. 2, just a block away from ABC’s global headquarters, where the debate will be held next week.
These billboards, part of the bank’s nonprofit initiative called 10,000 Small Businesses, urge the debate moderators to include discussions on small business policy during the event.
Small businesses have a significant impact on both economic output and employment in the United States.
According to the Office of Advocacy, there are 34.8 small businesses in the United States. As of 2024, they contribute approximately 43.5 percent of the United States’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employ 45.9 percent of the American workforce, equating to around 59 million people.
However, small businesses are struggling. According to The Zebra, an online insurance comparison platform, over 50 percent of small businesses fail in their first year and 66 percent face financial challenges.
Despite their significant economic contributions, small business concerns are often overlooked in presidential topics.
In a CNN debate in June, candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump focused on topics like abortion, immigration, and the broader economy during a 90-minute session but did not address the challenges facing small businesses.
“Obviously [the] economy is at the top of voters’ minds.” Mike Leon, the director of policy and strategy at the Free and Equal Elections Foundation, told NTD on Sept. 2.
He mentioned a recent Emerson poll conducted in conjunction with The Hill. It showed that voters in swing states like Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan consider “the economy” the most pressing issue, with particular concerns about “the price of consumer goods and the crisis of affordability and housing costs.”
Leon said that Harris is likely to defend Bidenomics in the debate, as she did in the CNN interviews, while Trump might argue that Bidenomics isn’t working and instead highlight his own economic track record.
“She can argue that there was a global pandemic that kind of interrupted all of this, and so that there were recovery efforts that happened afterward,” Leon said.
Leon suggested that voters compare past economic data to evaluate the policies of both candidates. “If you’re looking at both of their policies, you truly need to go back to 2018, 2019 and look at the cost of consumer goods, and what they were year over year, the cost of living for you and expenses in the state that you are living (in), and you can see the rises. Those are easily lookable statistics that anybody can research.”
Apart from the economic issue, Leon believes the ABC News team will cover other main topics, such as immigration and women’s reproductive rights.