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Testimony on “Mapping America’s Supply Chains”
US Industry Is Getting Its Way on China
Sen. Todd Young on Industrial Policy and Rebuilding American Capitalism

Large numbers of American workers are trapped in low-wage jobs in low-tech, low-profit industries in the nontraded domestic service sector, including leisure and hospitality, retail and child and elder care. To raise wages significantly, firms would have to increase their productivity by investing in innovative technology, but their profit margins are too small for them to make the investments.

Where it is possible to reap potential benefits of increasing returns to scale in these sectors, productivity could be boosted by the replacement of small firms with larger, better-capitalized businesses. But it is also possible for small firms to enjoy the benefits of scale by collaborating with other firms in some pre-competitive areas, while competing in others. Problems of collective action and the need for limited waivers of antitrust laws mean that only the government can be the catalyst that can free many small businesses from a low-productivity, low-wage equilibrium.

In a new policy brief from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), “Small Business Boards: A Proposal to Raise Productivity and Wages in All 50 States and the District of Columbia,” we propose a new federal-state program under the auspices of the Small Business Administration (SBA): the Small Business Board (SBB) program. Beginning with the most technologically backward and lowest-paying sectors, each state that chose to do so would receive federal matching grants to create a Small Business Board in a particular sector. The SBB would sponsor projects that could include collaboration on research and development and production technology modernization, together with shared vocational training, health insurance plans and minimal wages and benefits. Successful precedents for this approach can be found in the U.S. agricultural extension program that has brought generations of productivity advances to America’s small farmers, the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1937, the Manufacturing Extension Program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and others.

Read the entire report here: Small Business Boards: A Proposal to Raise Productivity and Wages in All 50 States and the District of Columbia

Michael Lind
Michael Lind is a columnist at Tablet, a fellow at New America, and the author of more than a dozen books, including Hell to Pay: How the Suppression of Wages is Destroying America (2023).
Recommended Reading
Testimony on “Mapping America’s Supply Chains”

Chris Griswold’s testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce, regarding “Mapping America’s Supply Chains”

US Industry Is Getting Its Way on China

Biden administration officials were keen to stress the limited scope of new rules announced in last week’s executive order, writes Oren Cass in the Financial Times.

Sen. Todd Young on Industrial Policy and Rebuilding American Capitalism

Sen. Todd Young and Oren Cass discuss how conservatives should think about industrial policy, how public policy can support R&D, and more.