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Analyst: U.S. entrepreneurs can benefit from relaxing EB-5 visa program requirements
A Kansas City-based foundation that supports and conducts research on entrepreneurial activities has called for a loosening of immigration requirements under the federal EB-5 visa program to increase the number of start-ups and new jobs in the U.S.
Because of the weakened state of the economy, investigators at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation claim that 71 percent of entrepreneurs don’t plan to hire any new employees in 2010, the Kansas City Star reports.
“In a new poll we just completed, entrepreneurs paint a pretty grim picture,” the foundation’s CEO Carl Schramm said in a State of Entrepreneurs address at the National Press Club in Washington.
About one-third of business owners have cut employment in the past year and about two-thirds experienced a decline in sales and profits, according to Schramm.
Specifically, the Ewing report revealed that most entrepreneurs felt that the recession is not over and will not end for at least another year.
Among remedies for the uncharacteristically negative performance experienced by the nation’s entrepreneurs, Ewing suggested that the government could exempt firms younger than five years old from the payroll tax to boost hiring incentives without enlarging the federal deficit, the news source reported.
Additionally, said Schramm, relaxing the EB-5 visa program’s immigration requirements could yield the arrival of foreign investors, eager to support American business.