(Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, joined Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman from Punchbowl News to discuss news of the day and the critical role that small businesses play in shaping the economic future of America. You can watch the discussion in full here.

During the event, Chair Shaheen said, “My favorite statistic about small businesses is that they create 16 times more patents per employee than large businesses, so the innovation that we're creating in this country is really coming from small businesses. [On our committee], we've looked at a number of challenges that small businesses are currently facing and are trying to think about how we can better address those [challenges].”

Key quotes from Chair Shaheen adjusted for clarity:

• “Every business that I've gone to since COVID, they've had three issues – they’ve been housing, child care and workforce.”

• “The future of this country is in the hands of our child care workers, and we need to recognize how important that is and support them. Every child care center that I've been to, their biggest challenge is keeping staff and workers because they can't pay them enough, and on the other hand, the biggest challenge that most families have is the cost of child care.”

• “We just introduced [the Helping Small Businesses THRIVE Act]. Senator Cassidy from Louisiana is my co-sponsor. My view is that in order to get things done it's important to work in a bipartisan way. What [our legislation] would do is allow small businesses to hedge on commodities. For big businesses, they can often lock in prices for commodities like gasoline and this [legislation] would give the SBA oversight over this program and allow small businesses to actually hedge on some of those prices.”

• “Back in 2010, I worked on legislation to create the State Trade Expansion Program, the STEP program. It is still going, and we have made some changes in it this year to try and make it work better for small businesses to deal with some of the paperwork. In New Hampshire, I just went to the airshow in Farnborough, [UK], because our biggest export [sector] is Aeronautics/Aerospace, and the companies that were there were able to be there with a booth at Farnborough because of the STEP program – they were able to use that money.”

Chair Shaheen and U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) recently introduced the Helping Small Businesses to Hedge Risk and Insure against Volatile Expenses (Helping Small Businesses THRIVE) Act to protect small businesses against unexpected increases in costs, such as gasoline or electricity, and help owners focus instead on running their businesses.

To help lower costs for small businesses, the Helping Small Businesses THRIVE Act gives small businesses the cost-certainty, time and confidence to build and grow their endeavors. It directs SBA to create a program that allows small businesses to hedge their cost exposure from commodities. The program offers small businesses options for how to lock in their prices going forward – with a focus on inputs that already have liquid markets and technical assistance to help businesses take full advantage of the program. Along with that guidance, SBA would conduct outreach to small businesses to ensure they are aware of the program and can benefit from it.

On April 10th, 2024, Shaheen convened a hearing where the U.S. Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee heard testimony from expert witnesses on the child care industry’s broken business model and what Congress can do to support small business child care providers, employees and families.

Shaheen introduced the Expanding Access to Child Care for Military Families Act of 2024 with Senator Ernst (R-IA) to respond to the shortage of child care availability for military families by creating a new Department of Defense-led pilot program to support workforce development opportunities for child care providers and to increase recruitment, retention and training of child care staff. This bill was included, in part, in the version of the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act that was passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee in June.

Shaheen also helped introduce the Right Start Child Care and Education Act of 2024 with Senator Angus King (I-ME) to help make child care more affordable and accessible for working families by reforming the tax code, including by creating a new tax credit for child care professionals with college degrees to strengthen the child care workforce.

Last year, Shaheen joined Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) to introduce the Child Care for Working Families Act, which would provide affordable child care for all working families, expand access to preschool programs and increases wages for early childhood workers. She also joined U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK) in reintroducing the Childcare Workforce and Facilities Act to address the national shortage of affordable, quality child care, especially in rural communities. In addition, Shaheen joined U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Patty Murray (D-WA) in introducing the Child Care Stabilization Act which would provide additional federal child care stabilization funding to child care providers.

Shaheen has been a leader in advocating for more accessible and affordable child care. Shaheen took to the Senate floor urging Congress to pass President Biden’s request for $16 billion to support child care stabilization grants in the domestic supplemental funding request. In 2021, Shaheen led the effort to deliver $77 million in child care relief funding to the State of New Hampshire through the American Rescue Plan. Since then, she has worked to hold the State accountable for delays in distributing some of those federal funds and helped deliver grants throughout the state, especially in communities that lack access to child care facilities.