Letter to the Editor: JOBS Act Successes
Steven Rattner asserts that “the JOBS Act has little to do with employment” (“A Sneaky Way to Deregulate,” Op-Ed, March 4), but the data say otherwise. The respected Kauffman Foundation has found that start-ups and emerging growth firms less than five years old — the very firms the JOBS Act assists — are responsible for almost all net job growth. President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness echoed these findings.
Since President Obama signed the bipartisan bill in April, some very successful initial public offerings by small and midsize firms have taken advantage of the law’s provisions. The online travel site Kayak and the discount retailer Five Below went public using the JOBS Act’s five-year exemption from the onerous mandates of laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank. These firms are now trading above their initial public offering prices and are expanding their operations.
The JOBS Act certainly factored into the small but significant drop in unemployment the United States saw this fall. More paring of excessive rules burdening start-ups could improve the jobs picture even further.