During Wednesday’s Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) questioned SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler about paid leave benefits for workers.
00:00Thank you Senator Coons. I'll turn to Senator Fisher now. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
00:04Welcome Administrator Loeffler. It is such a pleasure to see you again and I
00:09want to congratulate you on your nomination confirmation and also thank
00:14you for all the good work you are already doing in this position. Your
00:19enthusiasm is evident, your passion is evident, and I know you will continue to
00:26provide the services that this administration has focused on and that
00:34need to happen for the small businesses across this country. So thank you for
00:41that. As you know in the 2017 tax bill it included my bill to create a tax credit
00:49for employers who offer paid family and medical leave to their employees. The
00:54credit is the only national paid family medical leave policy that has ever been
01:02enacted into federal law. The credit expires at the end of this year and I've
01:07introduced legislation to make a couple of tweaks to make the credit permanent. I
01:12was pleased to see that the House included my bill in their tax package and I look
01:17forward to working with my Senate colleagues to see that it is included in
01:22the final product. I believe that the SBA can play a critical role in
01:28increasing awareness of the credit. One of the tweaks we made in the bill was to
01:33require SBA to do targeted education outreach and technical assistance on the
01:40credit and how employers can use this. And when we designed the bill our hope was
01:47that small businesses would be able to take advantage of it to offer their hourly
01:54employees a paid family medical leave that many of them do not have the
02:01opportunity to have as employees from larger businesses and corporations have
02:08that. We know that over 75% of small business owners support a federal financial
02:14incentives for small employees employers to provide paid leave benefits. Another
02:23survey tells us that for small business owners who don't offer paid leave over 58%
02:29reported that while they wanted to they couldn't afford to. So I think awareness
02:34education assistance are keys here and I think the SBA will play a large role in
02:40helping to get the word out. Again this is a tax credit, pro-business, pro-family, not a
02:47mandate, not a new entitlement. Like in FY25 I also intend to secure funding for the SBA to
03:00conduct that outreach. Can you commit to me that SBA will carry out this work diligently
03:06and quickly once we're able to get the authority and the funding to do the work?
03:11Well Senator thank you for your leadership in this important area and you brought it to
03:15my attention during my confirmation process so I'm pleased to hear that it's
03:20progressed and it's timely because we at the SBA have refocused on our field
03:27organization in our 68 regional offices and as you just heard our 1,000 small business
03:33development centers that would be an excellent conduit to support awareness and implementation
03:39and support. It's one more reason that this tax bill is so critical to small businesses
03:45across this country. So I look forward to learning more about that with you and your team
03:50and welcome the conversation.
03:52Thank you. Earlier this year I joined with my Alaska colleagues Senator Sullivan and Murkowski
03:58and sending you a letter requesting the SBA issue guidance on SBA's contract program, 8A contract program,
04:08clarifying that the recent executive order that eliminates DEI programs does not impact contracting
04:16with native owned companies. And I appreciate your response that we have gotten, guaranteeing that tribes will not be impacted by that executive order.
04:27It is important that we provide support to and for our native owned companies through the 8A contract program,
04:36including conducting outreach through the Office of Native American Affairs. As we look at this program,
04:45do you, will you, first of all, will you commit to continuing to work with me on ensuring that SBA tribal efforts are protected,
04:55but also to be able to stress the importance of this program in our outreach and support for our native tribes?
05:06Absolutely, Senator. We look forward to talking with you further about this and actually visiting your state to learn more about,
05:13you know, the key issues there for small businesses and our native Americans. Thank you.
05:22Thank you. We look forward to welcoming you to Nebraska. And once again, good to see you.
