Mehta: Help Small Businesses By Ending Unemployment Aid

CHESTER, NJ — Rik Mehta is calling on New Jersey to help small businesses by passing a fair franchising act and terminating the state's involvement in federal unemployment compensation programs.

Mehta, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in 2020 and a 2022 U.S. Congressional candidate, said in a statement that the state must end "crushing policies that have created a workforce shortage on Main Street."

"Small business owners have been squeezed by the unfair practices of two goliaths – Murphy’s overreaching administration and his crony, multibillion-dollar corporate friends profiteering off the pandemic," Mehta said, noting that 33 percent of New Jersey small businesses shuttered in 2020 despite 45 of the 50 largest U.S. companies turning a profit that year.

Mehta called Gov. Phil Murphy's lockdown measures designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus "unnecessary" and said they hit Latin- and African-American business communities the hardest, which resulted in a higher business closure rate in majority-minority neighborhoods.

"While business owners are struggling to make ends meet the price of doing business keeps rising coupled with an avoidable workforce shortage that has crushed their American dream," Mehta said.

To help small businesses, Mehta said, the state of New Jersey should create incentives for returning to work, such as a lump sum bonus paid out to former unemployment program recipients 180 days after they reenter the workforce.

Mehta also believes New Jersey should end its involvement in the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program, as well as the Mixed Earner Unemployment Compensation program, which helps self-employed individuals who receive artificially low unemployment benefits due to part of their income coming from W-2 wages.

Additionally, Mehta urged New Jersey to pass the Fair Franchising Act. The act would, among other things, prohibit a franchisor from requiring a franchisee to relocate or make any capital investment over $25,000 more than once every five years.

It would also prohibit a franchisor from requiring that a franchisee purchase goods, services, supplies or inventory exclusively from the franchisor or sources designated by the franchisor when comparable items are available from other sources.

"New Jersey is known for electing do-nothing politicians both in Trenton and in Washington that spent most of 2020 either profiteering off the pandemic or turning a blind-eye to damage being done to their local small businesses," Mehta said. "We need leaders to step up and set course for a successful recovery, and that can only be done by creating an economic environment that puts people back to work."