Our Small Business Advocacy Agenda

Health insurance premiums are rising rapidly for small businesses, driven largely by the underlying cost of medical care and prescription drugs. Average small group annual premiums were $7,300 per enrollee in 2024, and small group market premiums are set to increase by another 14% on average in 2027. Insurers predict that underlying medical costs will rise by nearly 11%.

The SBAC is pursuing two bipartisan reforms:

Illinois is the fourth most regulated state in the US. Many of these regulations provide necessary protections for consumers and the environment, but others serve only to regulate away competition. Together, these regulations cause a death by 282,040 cuts for small business owners and prospective entrepreneurs.

Increased regulatory burdens lead to fewer businesses opening, fewer jobs created, and lost revenue for existing businesses. Small businesses feel the impact of regulation most acutely. Regulations often create barriers to entry that deter newer, smaller competitors.

There are several ways to limit the impact red tape has on small businesses. Some of our priorities include:

• Streamlining the licensing and permitting process.
• Creating a uniform and timely inspection process.
• Fixing Chicago’s cumbersome debt check process.
• Allowing small businesses to cure first-time mistakes.
• Giving small businesses more input in the rulemaking process.

Illinois is home to more than 120,000 businesses owned by individuals aged 55 and older, employing more than one million workers and generating nearly $300 billion in annual revenue.

As these business owners retire without succession plans, Illinois faces a “Silver Tsunami” that could create a massive wave of business closures and job losses, particularly in rural areas and Chicago’s underserved neighborhoods.

We’re working on legislation that incentivizes two forms of shared ownership:

• Employee ownership: Employees own a stake in the business they work for and share in its success and growth. Models include Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), Worker-Owned Cooperatives (WOCs), and Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs).
• Community ownership: Community members pool their resources to collectively own, control, and redevelop neighborhood assets, such as commercial real estate, through Community Investment Vehicles (CIVs).

By selling to their employees, business owners preserve their legacies while keeping their company and its profits in the community.

Employee-owned businesses outperform conventionally owned businesses and are less likely to close. Their employees have longer job tenures, higher wages, and higher household wealth than employees at conventionally owned businesses.

Community ownership of commercial assets keeps wealth local and revitalizes disinvested communities.

In 2024, Chicagoland’s small and mid-sized businesses sought an estimated $43 billion in capital, but less than $9 billion (21%) was financed through formal lending channels. That’s a $34 billion (79%) gap. Between 2018 and 2024, small business loans rose 28%, but average loan size fell 32%, from $34,000 to $23,000. Combined, this means capital supply fell 14%.

Many small business owners feel compelled to turn to non-bank lenders to meet their capital needs. Unfortunately, some of these lenders use predatory practices that extract wealth from unsuspecting business owners. Some, for example, use misleading terms to disguise the fact that their loans have astronomical Annual Percentage Rates (APRs).

The federal Truth in Lending Act does not apply to small business financing, so small business owners lack the same protections as individual consumers. We proudly support legislation that will require non-bank lenders to disclose the APR of their business loans.