Nancy Forster-Holt

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Nancy Forster-Holt, University of Rhode Island

(THE CONVERSATION) Americans love small businesses. We dedicate a week each year to applauding them, and spend Small Business Saturday shopping locally. Yet hiding in plain sight is an enormous challenge facing small business owners as they age: retiring with dignity and foresight. The current economic climate is making this even more difficult.

As a professor who studies aging and business, I’ve long viewed small business owners’ retirement challenges as a looming crisis. The issue is now front and center for millions of entrepreneurs approaching retirement. Small enterprises make up more than half of all privately held U.S. companies, and for many of their owners, the business is their retirement plan.

But while owners often hope to finance their golden years by selling their companies, only 20% of small businesses are ready for sale even in good times, according to the Exit Planning Institute. And right now, conditions are far from ideal. An economic stew of inflation, supply chain instability and high borrowing costs means that interest from potential buyers is cooling.

For many business owners, retirement isn’t a distant concern. In the U.S., baby boomers – who are currently 61 to 79 years old – own about 2.3 million businesses. Altogether, they generate about US$5 billion in revenue and employ almost 25 million people. These entrepreneurs have spent decades building businesses that often are deeply rooted in their communities. They don’t have time to ride out economic chaos, and their optimism is at a 50-year low.

New policies, new challenges

You can’t blame them for being gloomy. Recent policy shifts have only made life harder for business owners nearing retirement. Trade instability, whipsawing tariff announcements and disrupted supply chains have eroded already thin margins. Some businesses – generally larger ones with more negotiating power – are absorbing extra costs rather than passing them on to shoppers. Others have no choice but to raise prices, to customers’ dismay. Inflation has further squeezed profits.

At the same time, with a few notableexceptions, buyers and capital have grown scarce. Acquirers and liquidity have dried up across many sectors. The secondary market – a barometer of broader investor appetite – now sees more sellers than buyers. These are textbook symptoms of a “flight to safety,” a market shift that drags out sale timelines and depresses valuations – all while Main Street business owners age out. These entrepreneurs typically have one shot at retirement – if any.

Adding to these woes, many small businesses are part of what economists call regional “clusters,” providing services to nearby universities, hospitals and local governments. When those anchor institutions face budget cuts – as is happening now – small business vendors are often the first to feel the impact.

Research shows that many aging owners actually double down in weak economic times, sinking increasing amounts of time and money in a psychological pattern known as “escalating commitment.” The result is a troubling phenomenon scholars refer to as “benign entrapment.” Aging entrepreneurs can remain attached to their businesses not because they want to, but because they see no viable exit.

This growing crisis isn’t about bad personal planning — it’s a systemic failure.

Rewriting the playbook on small business policy

A key mistake that policymakers make is to lump all small business owners together into one group. That causes them to overlook important differences. After all, a 68-year-old carpenter trying to retire doesn’t have much in common with a 28-year-old tech founder pitching a startup. Policymakers may cheer for high-growth “unicorns,” but they often overlook the “cows and horses” that keep local economies running.

Even among older business owners, circumstances vary based on local conditions. Two retiring carpenters in different towns may face vastly different prospects based on the strength of their local economies. No business, and no business owner, exists in a vacuum.

Relatedly, when small businesses fail to transition, it can have consequences for the local economy. Without a buyer, many enterprises will simply shut down. And while closures can be long-planned and thoughtful, when a business closes suddenly, it’s not just the owner who loses. Employees are left scrambling for work. Suppliers lose contracts. Communities lose essential services.

Four ways to help aging entrepreneurs

That’s why I think policymakers should reimagine how they support small businesses, especially owners nearing the end of their careers.

First, small business policy should be tailored to age. A retirement-ready business shouldn’t be judged solely by its growth potential. Rather, policies should recognize stability and community value as markers of success. The U.S. Small Business Administration and regional agencies can provide resources specifically for retirement planning that starts early in a business’s life, to include how to increase the value of the business and a plan to attract acquirers in later stages.

Second, exit infrastructure should be built into local entrepreneurial ecosystems. Entrepreneurial ecosystems are built to support business entry – think incubators and accelerators – but not for exit. In other words, just like there are accelerators for launching businesses, there should be programs to support winding them down. These could include confidential peer forums, retirement-readiness clinics, succession matchmaking platforms and flexible financing options for acquisition.

Third, chaos isn’t good for anybody. Fluctuations in capital gains taxes, estate tax thresholds and tariffs make planning difficult and reduce business value in the eyes of potential buyers. Stability encourages confidence on both sides of a transaction.

And finally, policymakers should include ripple-effect analysis in budget decisions. When universities, hospitals or governments cut spending, small business vendors often absorb much of the shock. Policymakers should account for these downstream impacts when shaping local and federal budgets.

If we want to truly support small businesses and their owners, it’s important to honor the lifetime arc of entrepreneurship – not just the launch and growth, but the retirement, too.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/no-country-for-old-business-owners-economic-shifts-create-a-growing-challenge-for-americas-aging-entrepreneurs-254537.

The United Auto Workers union announced last month it would be endorsing Rev. Solomon Kinloch Jr. in the Detroit mayoral race, calling him “a longtime advocate for working-class people.”

Kinloch, a senior pastor at Detroit’s Triumph Church, is the only candidate in the mayoral race who has not held an elected position. He is currently battling for second place in the race behind frontrunner Mary Sheffield — who continues to maintain a sizable lead. The top two vote getters in the Aug. 5 primary will face off in the November general election.

In Detroit, a political endorsement from the UAW has always carried considerable weight, but membership is down in recent decades, and there are shifting political views within.

Today on The Metro, UAW Region 1A Director Laura Dickerson joined the show to discuss the endorsement and why it matters.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

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Residents and landowners in Holly will be paying higher taxes so the village can stay solvent and prevent a takeover by the state.

Facing a deficit of over $600,000, the village council voted unanimously, 6-0, to approve a special assessment millage to balance the budget before June 20 as required by state law. President April Brandon was absent.

The one-year, 4-mill assessment is for  “all lands and premises” in the village and equals $4 per $1,000 of taxable value. It will raise $658,710 in revenue.

“The reason why we are looking at a special assessment rather than a vote, is because in order to get the money in to finance our village and in order to get a balanced budget which we are legally obligated to do, we have to get everything into the state by June 20,” said Village Manager Tim Price. “Even if we had found out about this on our first day in office, there would have been no time for a special election to put this on a ballot.”

“This is literally a tourniquet to stop the bleeding at this point,” said Trustee Amber Kier, who chaired the meeting in place of Brandon.

Price said the problem has not been with the village spending beyond their means but a lack of revenue.

The village’s millage rate has decreased over the past 43 years due to Headlee Rollbacks, which was established in 1982 to protect home owners by limiting the amount of property tax increases.

The millage rate has dropped to 11.32 mills for fiscal year 2025, while inflation and need for public services have escalated, according to Price, who took over as village manager in January. The assessment will appear on village residents’ tax bills next month.

“The can has been kicked down the road progressively for 43 years,” Price said. “This (assessment) is not going to answer all the financial questions right now, this just gets our heads above water. It allows us more time to develop some more strategies in order to meet these responsibilities.”

Holly resident Amber DeShone told the board the new assessment is happening too quickly.

“This increase with barely a month to prepare would be devastating for us,” said DeShone. “This will add $361.32 (to our expenses) with only a month to prepare. It feels rushed, it feels thoughtless and it feels unfair.”

Price said previous councils had borrowed money from the village fund balance to keep from going into a deficit and ignored warnings from their auditor Plante Moran.

“If you look back at previous meetings in previous years, such as 2020, this (budget deficit) information was presented to them (during audits) at the time and they were told they were facing this kind of environment and council chose not to do anything at that time,” said Price. “There was no sense of urgency for it and I don’t know why that is.”

Trustee Kier read a statement from Brandon.

“We (the council) did not create this problem, we inherited it,” said Brandon. “The deficit was hidden, though we don’t think it was intentional. None of us knew about it until this year.”

She added, “Now this council has to make a difficult decision, either cut essential services like fire and police… or we can raise taxes on residents that are already struggling.”

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By PAUL WISEMAN, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s trade wars are expected to slash economic growth this year in the United States and around the world, the World Bank forecast Tuesday.

Citing “a substantial rise in trade barriers’’ but without mentioning Trump by name, the 189-country lender predicted that the U.S. economy – the world’s largest – would grow half as fast (1.4%) this year as it did in 2024 (2.8%). That marked a downgrade from the 2.3% U.S. growth it had forecast back for 2025 back in January.

The bank also lopped 0.4 percentage points off its forecast for global growth this year. It now expects the world economy to expand just 2.3% in 2025, down from 2.8% in 2024.

In a forward to the latest version of the twice-yearly Global Economic Prospects report, World Bank chief economist Indermit Gill wrote that the global economy has missed its chance for the “soft landing’’ — slowing enough to tame inflation without generating serious pain — it appeared headed for just six months ago. “The world economy today is once more running into turbulence,” Gill wrote. “Without a swift course correction, the harm to living standards could be deep.’’

America’s economic prospects have been clouded by Trump’s erratic and aggressive trade policies, including 10% taxes — tariffs — on imports from almost every country in the world. These levies drive up costs in the U.S. and invite retaliation from other countries.

The Chinese economy is forecast to see growth slow from 5% in 2024 to 4.5% this year and 4% next. The world’s second-largest economy has been hobbled by the tariffs that Trump has imposed on its exports, by the collapse of its real estate market and by an aging workforce.

The World Bank expects the 20 European countries that share the euro currency to collectively grow just 0.7% this year, down from an already lackluster 0.9% in 2024. Trump’s tariffs are expected to hurt European exports. And the unpredictable way he rolls them out — announcing them, suspending them, coming up with new ones — has created uncertainty that discourages business investment.

India is once again expected to the be world’s fastest-growing major economy, expanding at a 6.3% clip this year. But that’s down from 6.5% in 2024 and from the 6.7% the bank had forecast for 2025 in January. In Japan, economic growth is expected to accelerate this year – but only from 0.2% in 2024 to a sluggish 0.7% this year, well short of the 1.2% the World Bank had forecast in January.

The World Bank seeks to reduce poverty and boost living standards by providing grants and low-rate loans to poor economies.

Another multinational organization that seeks to promote global prosperity — the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — last week downgraded its forecast for the U.S. and global economies.

John McElroy is a thought leader in the auto industry. He currently broadcasts three radio segments on WWJ, writes a blog for Auto Blog and a monthly column for Wards Auto.

Speaking with WDET News Director Jerome Vaughn at the 2025 Mackinac Policy Conference on Mackinac Island, McElroy warned that the industry is at “a near breaking point, particularly in Michigan.”

“There is a host of things that is hitting the industry all at once, and unprecedented in history,” he said. “So it’s something where I think we need much greater leadership than what we’re seeing right now within the industry itself — from our elected leaders as well — because we’ve seen the U.S. auto industry shrink tremendously over the last couple of decades, and without the proper policies and procedures coming in place, we’re in danger of losing a whole lot more.”

McElroy says the price of cars is too high, tariffs are hurting the market, and the electric vehicle transition has stalled. 

–WDET’s Jenny Sherman contributed to this report.

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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has said that the Detroit-Windsor area is the “busiest active border crossing in North America,” and that about $200 billion of trade flows between the two countries annually. 

A border that is active has plenty of infrastructure that needs to be maintained. Regine Beauboeuf, CEO of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel for American Roads, oversees the bridges, tunnels and toll roads that exist between the two countries. 

She joined The Metro live from Mackinac Island on Wednesday to discuss what her job entails and to provide more insight on the consequences of the trade war between the U.S. and Canada. 

American Roads is a U.S.-based owner and operator of transportation infrastructure, including toll assets, and currently operates three toll bridges — including the international tunnel connecting Detroit with Windsor.

She spoke about the region’s unique cross-border economy and why she doesn’t expect to see a major impact at the border from Trump’s recent tariffs.

“Together Detroit and Windsor, really that’s its own ecosystem,” she said. “We’ve been working together; it’s not just trade, it’s also people [who] will come to work, like the health care workers who are coming here; you have people with families or in-laws in other countries…so there is a very strong history between Windsor and Detroit and I don’t think you’ll see that being affected.”

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.

WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

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By JAMEY KEATEN, DAVID McHUGH, ELAINE KURTENBACH and KEN MORITSUGU, Associated Press

GENEVA (AP) — U.S. and Chinese officials said Monday they had reached a deal to roll back most of their recent tariffs and call a 90-day truce in their trade war to allow for more talks on resolving their trade disputes.

Stock markets rose sharply as the globe’s two major economic powers took a step back from a clash that has unsettled the global economy. Economists warned that tariffs still remained higher than before and that the outcome of future talks was uncertain.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the U.S. agreed to drop its 145% tariff rate on Chinese goods by 115 percentage points to 30%, while China agreed to lower its rate on U.S. goods by the same amount to 10%.

A deal averts a total blockade

Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the tariff reductions at a news conference in Geneva.

The two officials struck a positive tone as they said the two sides had set up consultations to continue discussing their trade issues. Bessent said at the news briefing following two days of talks that the high tariff levels would have amounted to a complete blockage of each side’s goods — an outcome neither side wants.

“The consensus from both delegations this weekend is neither side wants a decoupling,” Bessent said. “And what had occurred with these very high tariff … was an embargo, the equivalent of an embargo. And neither side wants that. We do want trade.”

“We want more balanced trade,” he said. “And I think that both sides are committed to achieving that.”

The delegations, escorted around town and guarded by scores of Swiss police, met for at least a dozen hours on both days of the weekend at a sunbaked 17th-century villa that serves as the official residence of the Swiss ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

At times, the delegation leaders broke away from their staffs and settled into sofas on the villa’s patios overlooking Lake Geneva, helping deepen personal ties in the effort to reach a much-sought deal.

Finally, a deal

China’s Commerce Ministry said the two sides agreed to cancel 91% in tariffs on each other’s goods and suspend another 24% in tariffs for 90 days, bringing the total reduction to 115 percentage points.

The ministry called the agreement an important step for the resolution of the two countries’ differences and said it lays the foundation for further cooperation.

“This initiative aligns with the expectations of producers and consumers in both countries and serves the interests of both nations as well as the common interests of the world,” a ministry statement said.

China hopes the United States will stop “the erroneous practice of unilateral tariff hikes” and work with China to safeguard the development of their economic and trade relations, injecting more certainty and stability into the global economy, the ministry said.

The joint statement issued by the two countries said China also agreed to suspend or remove other measures it has taken since April 2 in response to the U.S. tariffs.

China has increased export controls on rare earths, including some critical to the defense industry, and added more American companies to its export control and unreliable entity lists, restricting their business with and in China.

Markets rally as two sides de-escalate

The full impact on the complicated tariffs and other trade penalties enacted by Washington and Beijing remains unclear. And much depends on whether they will find ways to bridge longstanding differences during the 90-day suspension.

Bessent said in an interview with CNBC that U.S. and Chinese officials will meet again in a few weeks.

But investors rejoiced as trade envoys from the world’s two biggest economies blinked, finding ways to pull back from potentially massive disruptions to world trade and their own markets.

Futures for the S&P 500 jumped 2.6% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 2%. Oil prices surged more than $1.60 a barrel and the dollar gained against the euro and the Japanese yen.

“This is a substantial de-escalation,” said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics. But he warned “there is no guarantee that the 90-day truce will give way to a lasting ceasefire.”

Dani Rodrik, an economist at Harvard University, said that the two countries had stepped back “from a needless trade war’’ but that U.S. tariffs on China remain high at 30% “and will mainly hurt U.S. consumers.’’

U.S. President Donald Trump “has obtained absolutely nothing from China for all the chaos he generated. Zilch,’’ Rodrik wrote, posting on Bluesky.

Trump last month raised U.S. tariffs on China to a combined 145%, and China retaliated by hitting American imports with a 125% levy. Tariffs that high essentially amount to the two countries boycotting each other’s products, disrupting trade that last year topped $660 billion.

The announcement by the U.S. and China sent shares surging, with U.S. futures jumping more than 2%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index surged nearly 3% and benchmarks in Germany and France were both up 0.7%

The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on countries worldwide, but its fight with China has been the most intense. Trump’s import taxes on goods from China include a 20% charge imposed because Trump says Beijing has not done enough to stop trafficking in the precursor chemicals used to make the synthetic opioid fentanyl.

“The drop from sky-high to merely high tariffs, along with the uncertainty about the path of future tariffs, will still serve as a constraint on trade and investment flows between the two economies,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University.

“Nevertheless, it is a positive omen for the world economy that U.S. tariffs might eventually end up as significant trade barriers but not unsurmountable walls that block off international trade altogether,’’ he said.

McHugh contributed from Frankfurt, Germany; Kurtenbach from Mito, Japan; and Moritsugu from Beijing. Associated Press writer Paul Wiseman in Washington contributed to this report.

A report released this week by Oakland University shows its economic impact on the state has reached almost $2 billion dollars.

The report from the Anderson Economic Group for fiscal year 2024 shows OU generated more than $1.9 billion in new economic impact and supported nearly 6,500 jobs in Michigan.

The final figure represents direct and indirect economic activity and employment.

Direct impacts are driven by investments from the university, while indirect impacts reflect how spending circulates through the economy.

“At Oakland (University) we are making a profound difference in the lives of our students and in the enterprises of businesses,” said OU President Ora Pescovitz. “Small business, medium-size business and large businesses and in our communities from urban to suburban to rural.”

For comparison, a study done by Anderson  at Central Michigan University for fiscal year 2016, its economic impact on Michigan contributed $1.2 billion and created nearly 12,000 jobs.

And a 2018 report done on economic impacts at Western Michigan University showed a $1.6 billion of economic output in the Kalamazoo 3-county region of Kalamazoo, Van Buren, and Calhoun counties and economic activity supporting 16,690 jobs.

The OU jobs figure includes 3,569 new faculty and staff positions directly employed by OU and 2,848 indirectly generated jobs in other industries in the state due to expenditures by university faculty, staff and students.

“This is just our baseline, our vision is that by 2030 we are going to markedly increase these statistics,” said Pescovitz. “I am proud of these numbers, but frankly they are nowhere near enough.”

The report compiled in 2019 showed OU generated an economic impact of $957 with $51 million in state appropriations through the State School Aid Act. The new AEG report shows $1.9 billion with $72.8 million in state appropriations.

OU ranks 8th out of 15 state public universities in annual appropriations.

In 2024, Oakland University had 98,093 alumni living in Michigan and collectively they earned nearly $5.8 billion.

“A greater percent of our graduates remain in Michigan than from any other public university,” said Pescovitz.

The university also generated $76 million dollars from $37.3 million local, state and federal funds invested in research.

“The analysis shows that OU is a driver of regional economic activity, with alumni contributions and earnings extending their positive influence across Michigan,” said Patrick Anderson, CEO of AEG.