SSTI Digest

A report released earlier this month by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, addresses the barrier of inequality that women, despite making up more than 50 percent of the population, experience in the fields of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). Further, women of color are severely underrepresented in every STEMM discipline. The report focuses on promoting systemic change in the STEMM enterprise in order to mitigate structural inequities, biases, discrimination, and harassment faced by many women, which consequently discourages education and careers in STEMM. The report indicates four broad categories of recommendations for improving the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in in these fields: driving transparency and accountability; adopting data-driven approaches to address underrepresentation of women in STEMM; rewarding, recognizing, and resourcing equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts; and filling knowledge gaps. The report emphasizes that the interconnectedness of these recommendations underlies their strength. Within those four broad categories, the report makes more specific…

While startups consistently create more jobs than older firms, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis took a look at the trends in startup’s share of jobs and found that startup employment share has been declining for more than a decade. The Fed story provides an overview of startup employment dynamics between 1994 and 2018. While it found that the construction industry and leisure and hospitality industry contributed to the decline more than did the rest of the economy, the story calls for future research into the reasons behind the decline. Specifically, it notes that questions both about a decline in startups and about a change in employment dynamics among aging firms should be explored. A separate report from the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise and the Entrepreneurship Center at UNC takes a closer look at entrepreneurship. It reiterates findings of declining new firm creation, as well as lower job creation among existing high-growth firms, but also examines other views that contend the decline of business dynamism is overstated. An inaugural report provides insights into the topics affecting entrepreneurs, funders, ecosystem partners, policymakers and others in…

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is accepting public comments regarding their proposed changes to exempt offerings regulations. These modifications, originally announced last month, aim to streamline and expand the fundraising abilities for businesses while still qualifying as exempt from the SEC’s registration requirements. These changes include the separation of “demo days” from the general solicitation category, providing a new outlet for companies to advertise to potential investors. The Federal Register entry will remain open for public comment until June 1st. Comments can be submitted via webform, email or mail. Find additional details and instructions on SEC’s website.

A recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) detailed findings of a review of federal efforts to prevent sexual harassment at universities that receive grants for STEM research. The GAO reviewed five agencies (the Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Agriculture, NASA, Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Science Foundation) that provide approximately 80 percent of federal STEM research grants and found that four of the five received few complaints under Title IX from individuals at universities. Title IX prohibits sexual harassment and other forms of sex discrimination in education program that receive federal funding. Federal agencies are required to enforce the law at universities they fund. While all five agencies have established grantee sexual harassment prevention efforts beyond those required by Title IX, none of them have goals and plans for all of their efforts and thus lack clear ways to evaluate how well they are working and where they could improve. The report also notes that inconsistent with federal regulations implementing Title IX, two of the agencies — the DOE and USDA —lack finalized procedures for…

Despite having no coordinated outreach and growth strategy, the Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program has increased university participation in its Post-Secondary Education Outcomes (PSEO) survey — which illuminates the employment and earnings outcomes of graduates as well as what industries they work in and which region of the country they live in after graduation — and is already in the process of negotiating a significant expansion for the next wave. Originally developed in partnership with the University of Texas System, the program has grown to include the Colorado Department of Higher Education, the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison — bringing the total number of participating institutions to 47. The Census Bureau is currently negotiating agreements with university systems and state departments of higher education in Arizona, Indiana, New York (SUNY and CUNY systems), Ohio, Texas (Higher Education Coordinating Board), Utah, and Virginia.

Early-stage research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis examines the correlations between an area’s level of financial distress and its vulnerability to both the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Fed’s initial findings indicate that areas with low levels of financial distress were infected with the coronavirus and reached the point of exponential growth in new infections before areas experiencing greater levels of financial distress, while the rate of new infections is higher in more distressed areas. It also finds that a greater share of workers from areas of higher distress work in industries that are more vulnerable to the economic shocks caused by the virus than workers from areas of lower financial distress.

COVID-19 has generated an economic crisis that is, thankfully, unique to our lifetimes. If we are to recover efficiently as a country, then the policy response must be similarly unique, addressing multiple needs along different time scales. Many people are looking to the Great Recession for lessons on how to move forward, but there are critical contrasts between the two crises that have important implications for the solutions we should consider. The pace of the 2008 recession was comparatively glacial to the challenge imposed by COVID-19. In 2008, approximately 10 months passed before more than 3 million jobs were lost[1] from the January peak, a milestone we appear to have seen in last week’s unemployment insurance claims alone (and this week’s unemployment claims have doubled last week’s claims). The Dow Jones industrial average took nearly a year to lose the percentage of its October 2007 high[2] that we have experienced in the last six weeks. The dramatic difference in the pace of these crises has posed new challenges for governmental and nonprofit institutions to respond with preventative or immediate assistance. The source of the causes of the two crises…

In general, the effect of the pandemic on states’ budgets due to the wave of business, retail, and commerce shutdowns, as well as other reduced economic activity across the nation, is not entirely known, or too early to forecast; however, a number of states are beginning to experience the initial impacts of a substantial downturn. With several states having already enacted their 2020-21 budgets, special sessions are expected later this year to deal with declining revenues. Others ended sessions early without a new fiscal year spending plan in place. Many are also acting quickly to help mitigate the effects of lost revenues and an increased demand for services. Some of the states’ impacts and actions are outlined below. Alaska officials report that the drop in global oil prices will likely add $300 million to the state's current year (2020) budget deficit. The Alaska Journal of Commerce reports the state Legislative Finance Division told lawmakers that the state could experience a $600 million revenue reduction in the 2021 fiscal year, which starts July 1. In Arkansas, lawmakers were called into special session to address an estimated $353 million hit to the state’s…

With congressional apportionment along with federal funds, grants and support to states, counties and communities on the line, the U.S. Census count is vital to every community. But the 2020 decennial count has hit another roadblock with lagging participation and a delay in outreach efforts. Due to national social distancing guidelines and some states’ stay-at-home orders prompted by the COVID-19 outbreak, “Census Day,” originally scheduled for April 1, was recently postponed until at least April 15. The U.S. Census Bureau uses the day to kick-off in-person counting and outreach efforts, a huge component of the 2020 count.

Leveraging new data from the Census Bureau, the Kauffman Foundation recently released the second part of its new Indicators of Entrepreneurship series. This report focuses on the foundation’s New Employer Business indicators — a subset of the Early-State Entrepreneurship indicators provided in Kauffman’s first report of the series in September 2019 — meant to illuminate trends in the emergence of new businesses with employees and the time it takes for these companies to make their first payroll. The series replaces the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurship series.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it is seeking comments and suggestions on objectives and opportunities leading to research goals and informed product goals to facilitate transformative breakthroughs that would help the department increase agricultural production by 40 percent by 2050 while cutting the environmental footprint of U.S. agriculture in half. The effort is part of the department’s Innovation Agenda and includes four innovation clusters that have potential for transformative innovation: genome design; digital/automation; prescriptive intervention; and, systems based farm management. Comments are due by Aug. 1 and the full RFI can be found here.

With the unprecedented devastation being caused by COVID-19, SSTI has assembled a resource page for organizations, small businesses, universities and others. The page contains links to federal, state, and other programs providing guidance on the both the latest stimulus package and other sources of aid. We will also be updating and reorganizing this list, and we encourage you to reach out to us at contactus@ssti.org if you know of a program or resource that should be included here or have suggestions to improve usability. Access the resource page here.