The family lived paycheck to paycheck

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Other Articles In This Series Is a Gap in Small Business Credit Holding Back the American Economy Why Small Business Lending Is Not Recovering TRENDING FEB HBS CASE BEYOND GOALS DAVID BECKHAM S PLAYBOOK FOR MOBILIZING STAR TALENT MAR WHAT DO YOU THINK DO PEOPLE WANT TO WORK ANYMORE JAN OP ED WHY BOEING’S PROBLEMS WITH THE MAX BEGAN MORE.

THAN YEARS AGO FEB RESEARCH IDEAS HOW GENDER STEREOTYPES KILL A WOMAN’S SELF CONFIDENCE MAR RESEARCH IDEAS WANT TO MAKE DIVERSITY STICK BREAK THE CYCLE OF SAMENESS Karen Mills KAREN MILLS Senior Fellow CONTACT Send an email → More Articles FIND RELATED ARTICLES Going Public Finance Banking North Central America United States Chinese Overseas America Number Data SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTEFood Stamp Entrepreneurs How Public Assistance Enables Business Bootstrapping by Carmen Nobel Gareth Olds finds a definitive link between an increase in access to government assistance programs and an increase in new company formation. Gareth Olds grew up toeing the poverty line. For years his parents struggled to support three children in Anchorage Alaska where food costs run high. His stepfather held down a steady but low paying job as a dental assistant and his mom performed a series of odd jobs. The kids pitched in.





Delivering phone books is the worst way to spend a Sunday when you re a kid says Olds now an assistant professor in the Entrepreneurship Management unit at Harvard Business School. . And yet when Olds was a teenager his parents garnered the nerve and bootstrapped the funds to launch a vocational training program for dental assistants. Revenue from the new business pushed them out of poverty and into the middle class. Olds a budding economist was intrigued. “THE RATE OF NEW BUSINESS BIRTHS ROSE BY PERCENT AMONG HOUSEHOLDS THAT QUALIFIED FOR SCHIP. THE SURVIVAL RATE OF NEW BUSINESSES ROSE BY PERCENT.”