Vichal grew up in his parents’ convenience store, or just the “store” as it was always called. They bought it when he was seven, after his father’s garment shop in Manhattan went under and the family had to start over. His parents worked twelve hour days, seven days a week, for decades, because they had to. Vichal spent countless hours stocking shelves, making sandwiches, and running the register to keep the store afloat. The store was his family’s life.

​

Small businesses are what make New York City unique. They fill our streets with diversity and vibrancy and support local communities. There are almost 185,000 of them in the city, nearly half are immigrant-owned, generating $250 billion a year in economic impact. But small businesses are facing unprecedented challenges right now. Corporate conglomerates have captured the supply chain. Apps take a third of every restaurant order. Federal antitrust enforcement has collapsed. Commercial rent is unbearable. And on top of all of that, the Trump administration is making it worse. ICE is targeting immigrant business owners and their workers. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is signaling it will wave through corporate mergers. The federal budget guts the small business programs working families depend on.

For more than thirty years, Nydia Velázquez has fought for the people who took the risk of opening a small business in NY-07. She built the federal small business agenda this district depends on. Vichal is running to deepen that work and continue it, and hopes to serve on the Small Business Committee himself.

​

This paper follows the life of a small business: how to start, how to survive, and how to pass it on. Brooklyn has the highest concentration of small businesses of any borough in the city, while Queens is third.

​

1. STARTING: Fostering Entrepreneurship

Vichal’s parents bought their store with a community loan. That kind of starting capital does not exist for most working families today. The federal government can help, and Vichal will fight to deliver startup assistance through:

• No-interest federal startup loans and grants. ​​​SBA microloans top out at $50,000. The interest is more than most working-class entrepreneurs can afford. Vichal will fight for a no-interest federal startup program for first-generation entrepreneurs, immigrant communities, and the women and people of color this district’s small business economy is built on.

• Banking for immigrant entrepreneurs. Forty-four percent of immigrant small business owners in this city say they can’t get a loan. Banks won’t take an ITIN and CDFIs are starved for funding. Vichal will push for federal banking reform that recognizes ITINs, expand Community Development Financial Institution funding, and fight to shut down the practices that lock immigrant founders out of credit.

• Worker cooperatives. Worker-owned businesses last longer, pay better, and don’t pick up and leave when a landlord doubles the rent. Nydia Velázquez passed the Main Street Employee Ownership Act in December 2024, which finally opened SBA 7(a) loans to employee ownership conversions. The SECURE Act 2.0 created an Employee Ownership Initiative at the Department of Labor. Vichal will push for full funding for both, for employee ownership programs, and a tax code that makes worker ownership a real option for every small business owner ready to retire.

• Childcare and healthcare. Working parents can’t start a business if they can’t afford childcare. Self-employed workers can’t stay self-employed if they can’t afford insurance. Vichal supports Medicare for All. In the meantime, he’ll fight for federal childcare investment, an expanded Small Business Health Care Tax Credit, and a public option that gives small business owners a real alternative to the ACA marketplace.

​

2. SURVIVING: Supporting Existing Businesses

Surviving as a small business in this district today means fighting forces Vichal’s parents never had to fight. Corporate conglomerates. Punishing apps. Out-of-control rent. A federal government that stopped enforcing antitrust law a long time ago. The deck is stacked. Vichal will focus Congress’s efforts on protecting small business by:

• Blocking the Sysco-Restaurant Depot merger. Sysco announced a $29.1 billion takeover of Restaurant Depot in March 2026. Restaurant Depot is the supplier 725,000 small foodservice businesses depend on, across 35 states. If the merger goes through, the restaurants, bodegas, and small businesses in this district lose the affordable supply chain they have built their whole operations around. The Trump FTC will wave it through. Vichal will fight to block it under the Clayton Act and federal antitrust law.

• Capping what the apps can take. New York City capped delivery commission fees at 23 percent in 2021. The apps sued. The April 2025 settlement raised the cap back up to 43 percent. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a brief calling the worker protections “price controls.” DoorDash made $10.7 billion in revenue in 2024. Vichal will push for a federal cap on app commission fees and fight every preemption attempt that tries to override what this city has won.

• Standing with delivery workers. Most delivery workers in this district are immigrants and are some of the most exploited workers in the country. Apps classify them as independent contractors to dodge minimum wage, overtime, and Social Security. Vichal will co-sponsor the PRO Act, push the Department of Labor to apply a worker classification standard that reflects how delivery work actually works, and oppose every federal preemption attempt.

• Using federal leverage against predatory commercial landlords. Seventy-seven percent of immigrant small business owners in this city are rent-burdened. And the worst predatory landlords often own portfolios that benefit from federal subsidies, contracts, or loans. Vichal will fight to attach anti-displacement and stable-rent conditions to federal small business funding, federal economic development dollars flowing into this district, and SBA programs that support landlord-owned buildings.

• Providing a federal wage credit. Wages have been stagnant for too long, and small businesses can’t keep up with rising costs. There’s already a federal tax credit that helps small businesses afford health insurance, and Vichal will fight for the same kind of credit for wages. Only the smallest operators would qualify, not the franchises of national chains. 

​

3. PASSING IT ON: A Path Forward for the Next Generation

Vichal’s parents sold their store because their health had greatly suffered. Like a lot of small businesses, there was no plan for what came next. No retirement or succession plan. Congress can support that transition by:

• Worker cooperative conversions as the federal default. Section 1042 of the tax code lets owners defer capital gains when they sell their business to their employees. It only applies to non-publicly traded C-corporations, locking out LLCs, partnerships, and sole proprietorships. Vichal will fight to extend full Section 1042 deferral to every small business form, grow the SBA loan programs that help owners sell to their workers, and build a federal technical assistance program that walks retiring owners through the conversion.

• Federal retirement security for small business owners. Most small business owners have no retirement plan because they are the employer. Vichal will fight for federal Roth IRA and SEP-IRA contribution expansions, and a portable federal retirement program for the self-employed and gig workers.

• Healthcare for the people who built the business. Vichal will push for a federal public option that small business owners and the self-employed can buy into directly, and for Medicare buy-in for older self-employed workers who can’t retire but can’t afford private insurance either.

• Apprenticeship pipelines into the small business economy. Vichal will push for federal apprenticeship funding for small businesses and priority pathways for the people this system has historically locked out: NYCHA residents, the formerly incarcerated, and CUNY students looking for a way into the trades, hospitality, food service, and small business management.

​

The federal government has not been a full partner for small businesses in this district. It allowed corporate conglomeration to capture the supply chain. It let platforms extract a third of every order. It let antitrust enforcement collapse. Vichal is running to change that and give immigrant entrepreneurs and working families the support they need.

Vichal is running to change that. He spent twenty years as a public defender fighting for working people to get what they deserve. He grew up in the store and knows what it costs to do this work. He is running to make sure the next generation of small businesses in NY-7 has the federal partner they deserve.