Don’t cut off our digital safety net

Dear Policymaker:

On behalf of our 2000 small businesses, our employees, and the communities we serve, we write to ask for your help. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of small businesses to fail and still threatens millions more. For those that have survived this long, we are grateful for customers’ loyalty and we are determined to succeed, but we need the full support of our elected leaders.

Now more than ever, government policies and actions must reflect how today’s small businesses operate. In the modern economy, affordable digital tools power our businesses and enable strong and direct relationships with our customers. Government investigations and lawsuits against digital platforms, marketplaces, and services threaten our access to tools that are critical to small business survival and success.

Financial support programs for small businesses are helpful. But their positive impact is undermined by simultaneous attacks on our digital platform partners. The tools and services provided by leading technology companies are essentially our self-help tools. They comprise our Digital Safety Net and are critical to our pandemic survival. By disrupting our digital partners, the investigations and lawsuits threaten our Digital Safety Net and will be costly and potentially devastating to small businesses. 

Going forward, we ask our elected leaders to prioritize:

• Small business partnerships with digital platforms – supporting them rather than attacking them.
• Small business access to capital. 
• Small business education and access to skills, particularly digital skills that are increasingly important.

Small businesses are the heart of our communities and the engine of our economy. We understand and accept the responsibility of leading our national recovery, but we can’t do it alone. Please give us the support we need rather than attacking the digital platform partners that are helping us when we need it most.