Small businesses across the country are reeling from the effects of mandatory lockdown orders. Despite the $670 billion Congress has allocated for small business relief, many have had to furlough staff, file for bankruptcy, or close permanently. Many more wonder if – or when – they will be forced to do the same. Small businesses are an important vehicle for economic mobility as they employ nearly half the US labor force. How they recover from this pandemic will likely determine the pace of the national economic recovery.

In their policy brief, Patrick MacLaughlin and Tyler Richards propose strategies for state and federal policymakers to help small businesses by reducing their regulatory burden. By creating temporary or permanent widespread exceptions for small businesses from large, well-defined groups of regulations, policymakers can quickly mitigate hardship without imposing significant social costs. To implement these changes, they suggest establishing an independent, bipartisan commission to determine which groups of regulations will be targeted for exemptions and make them law to protect the process from undue influence from special interests.