Milstein Commission Releases Report on Creating Middle-Class Jobs Through Entrepreneurship
January 15th, 2015The University of Virginia’s Miller Center released a report on Wednesday proposing five innovative, nonpartisan and actionable ideas to help create middle-class jobs by maximizing the resources available to entrepreneurs. The report is the work of the Miller Center’s Milstein Symposium Commission on Entrepreneurship and Middle-Class Jobs, led by Steve Case, co-founder of AOL and chairman and CEO of Revolution, and Carly Fiorina, former chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard.
The commission was conducted in partnership with the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at U.Va.’s Darden School of Business.
The report, “Can Startups Save the American Dream?” is available here. An executive summary can be found here.
Ideas proposed in the report focus on expanding access to capital, streamlining cumbersome regulatory processes, enhancing educational opportunities and student exposure to entrepreneurship, and equipping local and state governments and business leaders to build robust community-based entrepreneurial ecosystems.
“Entrepreneurs are the secret sauce of America—building not only iconic companies but entire industries,” said Case. “Historically, entrepreneurship has also been about creating pathways to the middle class, and helping people attain the American Dream. Entrepreneurs must again be at the heart of rebuilding the American economy.”
“Entrepreneurship has always been the great American pastime,” said Fiorina. “But for the first time in our history, more businesses are being destroyed than created, and this has had a profound impact on America’s middle class. The ideas contained in our report will make it easier for Americans to fulfill that fundamental human urge to build a better life.”
Howard P. Milstein said: “This report delivers ideas designed to ensure that entrepreneurship not only remains at the core of American economic DNA, but also that these opportunities come to Main Street. Capital investment and processes that accelerate business creation and growth are key to success and will result in new jobs and opportunities for the 21st Century. The most powerful force on earth is the private sector of the United States, powered by America’s indomitable creativity and entrepreneurial spirit.”
The effort is part of the Milstein Symposium: Ideas for a New American Century, an initiative that is bringing together policymakers, business leaders, scholars, and journalists to define and advance ideas and policies to help create middle-class jobs and help rebuild the American Dream. In the symposium’s first year, separate commissions are studying job creation in three areas: entrepreneurship; manufacturing; and infrastructure investment.
Support for the Milstein Symposium is provided through the Howard and Abby Milstein Foundation and Emigrant Bank.
More information is available here.
About the Darden School of Business
The University of Virginia Darden School of Business is one of the world’s leading business schools, offering MBA, Ph.D. and Executive Education programs.
About the Batten Institute
The Batten Institute at the Darden School of Business improves the world through entrepreneurship and innovation. The Batten Institute was established with gifts from U.Va. alumnus Frank Batten Sr.
SOURCE: Howard and Abby Milstein Foundation/Miller Center
Click here for an article about the report in Inc. magazine.
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