South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce

Dignity Act receives strong support from business organizations - Secure Growth Initiative August 10, 2025 Dignity Act receives strong support from business organizations Bipartisan immigration bill offers better path forward for economy National business organizations have given strong sup...

Dignity Act receives strong support from business organizations
Bipartisan immigration bill offers better path forward for economy
securegrowthinitiative.com/dignity-act-...

Duke Energy seeks big rate hikes across entire northern part of SC - SC Small Business Chamber of Commerce Press Release August 6, 2025 Duke Energy seeks big rate hikes across entire northern part of SC Small Business Chamber files to intervene Columbia, SC—Together Duke Energy Carolinas (DEC) and Duke Ene...

Duke Energy seeks big rate hikes across entire northern part of SC
Small Business Chamber files to intervene
scsbc.org/duke-energy-...

--Women owned 46.3 percent of businesses.
--Veterans owned 8.4 percent of businesses.
--Hispanics owned 6.2 percent of businesses.
--Blacks/African Americans owned 20.1 percent of businesses.

Contact for comment:
Frank Knapp
SC Small Business Chamber of Commerce
803-600-6874
fknapp@scsbc.org

The SBA's definition of a small business is a business with 499 or fewer employees.

Highlights:

--440,037 of the 530,402 small businesses had no employees (83%).
--79,440 of the 530,402 small businesses had 1-19 employees (15%).
--10,925 of the 530,402 small businesses had 20-499 employees (2%).

2025 Small Business Profile

The SBA Office of Advocacy has issued it's Small Business Profiles for the nation and for each state.

The South Carolina profile can be found here:
advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/u...

…Knapp said that alternative may be the Dignity Act of 2025, which was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 15 by Reps. María Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., and Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, and 20 co-sponsors, half Republicans and half Democrats.

…Knapp does not favor “carve-outs” that would protect workers in certain industries from deportation. That would be unfair to those industries that are not protected, he said.

…He is also now the managing director of The Secure Growth Initiative, a small-business coalition concerned with border security and enhancing America’s workforce to protect small businesses.

Secretary Brooke Rollins said this month.
Frank Knapp, who has run the Columbia-based South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce advocacy organization for 25 years, agrees.

“It’s a pipe dream they’re selling to the public,” he told me.

for we the people of the United States of America.

… The economic reality is that businesses desperately need workers, and migrants are not taking Americans’ jobs. It’s farcical to say jobs done by workers being yanked off the streets can be easily filled by Medicaid recipients, as Agriculture

Beaufort County doesn’t need Alligator Alcatraz cages or masked gunmen | Opinion As Beaufort County eyes a partnership with the U.S. government, columnist David Lauderdale writes that the nation’s mass deportations make no sense in South Carolina because of economic realities.

Beaufort County doesn’t need Alligator Alcatraz cages or masked gunmen, Hilton Head Island Packet, The State (Columbia, SC)

July 17, 2025

Opinion By David Lauderdale

The cages of “Alligator Alcatraz,” the federal government’s new 3,000-bed immigration detention center in Florida, are not a good

Trump tax reform bill could mean dark days ahead for solar companies Small solar companies in South Carolina are now on the brink of going out of business after the passage of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.

enabling the states to cut back on their need for new energy generation.”

Read More
www.live5news.com/2025/07/16/t...

And that’s going to be not good for, of course, those small businesses,” Knapp says. “It’s not going to be good for their potential customers so they can save energy. And it’s not good for the state of South Carolina or any state because the solar panels were

Trump tax reform bill could mean dark days ahead for solar companies Small solar companies in South Carolina are now on the brink of going out of business after the passage of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.

Rooftop solar small businesses on deathwatch due to Big Beautiful Bill

A tax credit that offsets the cost of solar panels by 30 percent was removed when Congress approved the bill.

“It’s a growing business that’s about to die.

Small businesses endorse bipartisan immigration bill - Secure Growth Initiative Press Statement For Immediate Release Small businesses endorse bipartisan immigration bill Dignity Act offers better path forward on immigration Washington, DC (July 15, 2025)—The Secure Growth Initia...

to end the chaos of our present immigration enforcement efforts that are financially harming our small businesses by taking their employees and causing the immigrant community to dramatically cut back on their consumer spending.” – Frank Knapp Jr

Read
securegrowthinitiative.com/small-busine...

Small businesses endorse bipartisan immigration bill
Dignity Act offers better path forward on immigration

“The Dignity Act recognizes the critical labor contributions of the undocumented and Dreamers to our small business economy. This is the path Congress needs to quickly take

fewer customers. The new laundromat is only generating 40 percent of what it should have been.
Read story:
www.newsweek.com/mass-deporta...

location this year with help from a $2 million SBA loan. But now, Rebolloso says, fear of immigration enforcement has sharply reduced customer traffic at both businesses.

"Customers tell me that people are afraid and scared to come out," Rebolloso said. "The first laundromat has 50 percent

Mass deportations are killing small businesses, owners say "Customers tell me that people are afraid and scared to come out," business owner David Rebolloso told Newsweek.

Newsweek

Mass Deportations Are Killing Small Businesses, Owners Say

(David Rebolloso provided his story to the American Sustainable Business Network, a Secure Growth Initiative coalition leader.)

In 2014, he purchased his first laundromat, and after seeing steady success, he opened a second

Opinion: Trump’s relief for farmers looks like control by fear There should be no immigration carve-outs for favored industries in immigration policy.

Neither approach is the answer to the immigration mess.

Read more
www.dglobe.com/opinion/colu...

Opinion: Trump’s relief for farmers looks like control by fear

Over the past several weeks, President Trump’s immigration policy has see-sawed between all-out enforcement crackdowns and deportation exemption carve-outs for favored industries.

Don't Deport Our Best Entrepreneurs V.3, N.35 - We are here through our ancestors, who took enormous risks and got into the country through persistence and luck. This makes the lack of compassion the Trump administration has toward immi...

get involved with small businesses and become so passionate about them?

Read more:

mainstreetjournal.substack.com/p/dont-depor...

Main Street Journal Publisher Michael Shuman talks with Frank Knapp

MS: Frank, thank you for talking with us today. You have been doing serious policy advocacy for small businesses longer than almost anyone else I know. How did you

Small businesses paying the financial price of the ICE charade of arresting “the worst of the worst” - Secure Growth Initiative For Immediate Release                                                June 25, 2025 Small businesses paying the financial price of the ICE charade of arresting “the worst of the worst” Washington, DC-N...

Of the remaining 35% of those who have committed any crime, NBC says that the “most common categories of crimes they committed were immigration and traffic offenses.”

Read more
securegrowthinitiative.com/small-busine...

Small businesses paying the financial price of the ICE charade of arresting “the worst of the worst”

Washington, DC—NBC News reports that of the 185,042 immigrants arrested and detained from October 1 through May 31 only 1.3% have been convicted of homicide or sexual assault.

SC sends a resounding “NO” to offshore drilling planning - SC Small Business Chamber of Commerce Press Release June 19, 2025 SC sends a resounding “NO” to offshore drilling planning Columbia, SC—The federal government has begun its planning process that ends with authorization of offshore drillin...

The voices of South Carolina elected officials, coastal cities, and businesses were loud and unanimous…DO NOT DRILL off of our coast.
scsbc.org/18777-2/

The first public comments were to be submitted to the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management by this past Monday, June 16th.

SC sends a resounding “NO” to offshore drilling planning

Columbia, SC—The federal government has begun its planning process that ends with authorization of offshore drilling for oil along designated sections of the entire U.S. coast.

Small Business: Stop punishing us for the immigration policy mess, or compensate us for our losses - SC Small Business Chamber of Commerce For Immediate Release June 17, 2025 Small Business: Stop punishing us for the immigration policy mess, or compensate us for our losses Washington, DC—The Secure Growth Initiative, launched in April of...

their labor,” said the Managing Director of the new organization, Frank Knapp.

The Secure Growth Initiative criticizes and offers another path forward regarding the current mass deportation effort that is punishing small businesses and resulting in lost revenue.

More:
scsbc.org/small-busine...

“Small businesses have come to rely on the labor of the undocumented, who have been literally told for decades that they are in the country illegally but to get a job and pay their taxes. Millions have done just that, and small businesses have come to rely