April 28 (UPI) -- The White House said Thursday that President Joe Biden's administration has created an economic boom for small businesses and the domestic economy that created close to 2 million new jobs over the first nine months of 2021.
The White House issued a report that said that 5.4 million new businesses and 1.9 million jobs were created over the first three quarters of 2021. it also outlines new actions to make starting small businesses simpler and help Americans keep them going.
The 23-page report says job and business creation was aided by the American Rescue Plan, which provided key economic relief as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The boom in new business creation has been particularly strong for entrepreneurs of color," the White House said in a statement. "In 2021, Hispanic Americans started new businesses at the fastest rate in more than a decade and 23% faster than prepandemic levels."
The assessment also criticizes a Republican tax plan in Congress that it says would "impose a minimum tax on middle-class families would increase taxes on small businesses across the country." The tax plan was introduced by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.
"The analysis [of the Republican plan] finds that this tax plan would raise taxes on nearly half of small business owners (6.1 million people), including 82% of small business owners making less than $50,000 per year," the report notes.
Scott's plan, which calls for taxing the income of more than half of Americans who don't qualify to pay taxes, has been criticized on both sides of the aisle. Among the critics is Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
Thursday's report is an effort to communicate economic success to the American public in view of low recent approval numbers for Biden.
A survey by CNBC recently said that 47% of respondents said the U.S. economy was in "poor" shape, the highest share since 2012. Just 17% said the economy is in "excellent" or "good" shape.
The White House report was released a few hours before the Commerce Department said in its quarterly report that the U.S. economy contracted by 1.4% over the first quarter of 2022. The shrinking economy caught most experts by surprise, as most predicted the report to show a modest 1% gain in the first quarter.