State Microenterprise Policy

Rationale

There is wide support throughout the country for encouraging microenterprise as a strategy to support low-income individuals by helping them set up their own businesses, thus getting off welfare and climbing out of poverty. Multistate demonstrations of microenterprise have proven that welfare recipients and other disadvantaged populations can use self-employment as a route to economic independence and wealth creation.

About Measure

States receive credit for having one or more of the following sources of funding for microenterprise: 1) state general funds, 2) TANF funds, 3) Community Development Block Grant funds, 4) welfare-to-work funds, 5) other funds. A state receives 0 points if it does not have any of the sources of funding, 0.2 if it has one source, 0.4 if it has two, 0.6 if it has three, 0.8 if it has four, and 1 if it has all five.

Source

Brown, P., Corporation for Enterprise Development. (Interviews and electronic correspondence, February 2002). Washington, D.C.