SACRAMENTO, CA (MPG) - The state’s leading small-business association minced no words in slamming Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement that he would not use his authority to suspend a scheduled Jan. 1, 2021 increase in the state’s minimum-wage rate.

“It has to be asked if the governor even cares about small business,” said John Kabateck, California state director for NFIB. “Small businesses in California are dying, so what is the Golden State doing to stanch the flow of the carnage? It hits them with increased costs in paid family leave programs, increased workers’ compensation premiums via rebuttable presumption, zero fixes to a deeply flawed independent contractor law, and now a scheduled increase in minimum wages. We have an official economic policy in California, and it’s to completely annihilate small businesses.”

Everything the governor and Legislature have done has been for the employee and nothing for the people who have to bring in the money to pay the employee, according to Kabateck. “It’s as if they are expecting the COVID-19 crisis to vanish tomorrow,” he said. “As someone whose job it is to support the opening and sustaining of small businesses, I never thought I’d be advising small-business owners to do neither. You don’t have your state government in your corner.”

Keep up with the latest on California small-business at www.nfib.com/california

For more than 77 years, NFIB has been advocating on behalf of America’s small and independent business owners, both in Washington, D.C., and in all 50 state capitals. NFIB is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, and member-driven association. Since its founding in 1943, NFIB has been exclusively dedicated to small and independent businesses and remains so today. For more information, please visit nfib.com.