Despite Biden’s attacks, franchising is poised to help Trump boost the US economy
By Matthew Haller OPINION Fox News
Published January 3, 2025 5:00am EST
As he prepares to take office, President-elect Donald Trump has outlined an audacious goal of returning to pre-pandemic rates of economic growth and a “golden age of America.” After four years of being told the economy was better than how it hit our wallets, this is a welcome change of direction.
To achieve this objective, the new administration is going to need the private sector – something the Biden era not only mostly ignored, but whose regulatory agenda was downright hostile to the concerns of most industries. The franchise sector, which I represent and includes 800,000 small businesses supporting 9 million workers, is ready to get to work as a resource to the Trump administration.
Franchising played a starring role in the 2024 election, no more so than Trump’s turn behind the fryer of a Pennsylvania McDonald’s. While franchising is often associated with food, most (more than six in ten) are in another industry, ranging from hotels, salons, fitness, pet care and many more.
Even after several punitive attacks on franchising from the Biden administration, the franchise sector is projected to have grown by 4% this year compared to 2.7% for the broader economy.
With a change in philosophy at the federal government, the opportunities for franchising’s animal spirits to be harnessed are ripe. Here are three things the Trump administration can do to supercharge its economic growth:
- Make the Trump joint employer standard into law
There is no bigger federal priority for franchising than clarifying the joint employer standard. The entire model hinges on the independence between the franchisor (the brand) and its individual franchisees. The former provides the concept, the framework and the branding for the latter, who is free to run their own business, in exchange for an agreed-upon fee and following the brand standards that consumers expect, whether in Palm Beach or Parsippany.
In 2023, the Biden administration’s National Labor Relations Board tried to reverse the 2020 Trump joint employer standard and remove the autonomy between franchisors and franchisees. As the name suggests, the goal was putting the franchisor on the hook for franchisee’s employees to increase legal liability and ease of unionization.
Thankfully, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas threw out the Biden overreach, but after four changes to this rule in the last decade, franchising needs a permanent standard for joint employment that codifies the Trump definition. Business owners can’t plan when the regulatory climate is always changing with the occupant of the White House. They need certainty.