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CAMEO Honors Self-Employment Champions

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) June 19, 2013

For National Small Business Week (June 17-24), CAMEO honors Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada, (D-Davis) and Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown, (D – San Bernardino). The assemblywomen introduced two bills this session that would increase self-employment within the workforce system.

“All small businesses start with a single impassioned owner. If we’re going to celebrate small businesses, we must also celebrate the self-employed. CAMEO honored these two women because they recognize the importance of self-employment as job creation,” said Claudia Viek, CEO of CAMEO. “Their bills are part of the process to change a fifty-year old workforce system that doesn’t meet the needs of the 21st century workforce.”

Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown, (D – San Bernardino) is the author of AB 285, Micro Enterprise: Economic Development, a bill that encourages the California state Workforce Investment Board to set guidelines for local WIBs to incorporate entrepreneurship training. This bill has passed the assembly and is moving through the Senate unopposed.

“Microenterprises are so important because they create jobs, generate taxes, and revitalize our communities. My bill, AB 285, will offer entrepreneurial training programs with specialized assistance to small businesses and further capitalize on job creation and boost our state’s economic growth,” said Assemblywoman Brown. “As a legislator and longtime small business owner, at this time, I want my legacy to be small business, small business, small business.”

Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada, (D-Davis) authored AB 152, Self-Employment Assistance program, a bill that would allow the unemployed to keep their benefits while starting their own businesses. The bill remains in the appropriations committee because the state says that the cost of the program exceeds the $5.3 million available from the federal government to run the program.

Self-employment is a labor market trend; self-employment was more than 25% of wage and salary employment in 2009. Pre-2000, self-employment grew at an average of 1.4% a year; post-2000, self-employment grew at an average of 3.5% a year (see graph). According to Emergent Research’s State of Independence report, independent workers will grow by 35% by 2017.

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CAMEO’s mission is to grow a healthy, vibrant, thriving environment for all entrepreneurs and start-up businesses by advancing the work of our statewide member network – the over 160 organizations, agencies and individuals dedicated to furthering the growth of micro-businesses in California.

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