The Forgotten Foundation of Our Economy

What makes an economy truly strong?

Is it the towering factories pumping out electric cars and solar panels? The billion-dollar investments announced with fanfare at political rallies? Or is it something quieter, less glamorous — the everyday resilience of small businesses lining Main Street, the corner store that knows your name, the local repair shop, the family-owned farm?

In recent years, American economic policy has been fixated on the visible spectacle of industrial might. Politicians and business leaders tout colossal manufacturing projects, infrastructure megadeals, and corporate tax incentives as the engines of prosperity. We’re told these investments will “bring jobs back,” “rebuild the middle class,” and “restore American greatness.”

But beneath the headlines and ribbon-cuttings, a different reality persists — one that rarely makes the evening news.

Small businesses, which account for nearly half of private-sector employment in the U.S., continue to struggle. Local economies, especially in rural areas and inner cities, face systemic neglect. Entrepreneurs with bold ideas but limited resources find doors closed, funding scarce, and bureaucratic hurdles overwhelming.

The disconnect is glaring: while the political rhetoric exalts big industry, the economic health of communities depends on small-scale, decentralized enterprises. These are the businesses that create diverse job opportunities, circulate wealth locally, and foster economic resilience. They are not "collateral assets" of the economy — they are its very foundation.

Yet, current economic strategies largely overlook this truth.

Decisions are increasingly made in boardrooms and think tanks, far removed from the lived experiences of small business owners and working families. The Base of the Pyramid (BoP) — the broad segment of the population with the least income but the greatest numbers — is rarely considered in policy design. Instead, the focus remains on bolstering those already at the top.

As a result, the gaps widen. Economic opportunity becomes more concentrated, leaving vast swaths of the country economically fragile, socially strained, and politically disillusioned.

This newsletter aims to explore why this top-heavy approach is not only flawed but dangerous — and why rekindling support for the BoP economy is essential for a truly strong and sustainable America.

Introducing the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Economy

When we talk about "the economy," conversations often gravitate toward stock markets, GDP figures, and corporate earnings. But this perspective overlooks a critical dimension: the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) economy.

The BoP concept, first articulated by business thinkers like C.K. Prahalad and Stuart Hart, refers to the largest segment of the population — those with the lowest incomes. Globally, this includes billions of people living on modest means. Despite their limited individual purchasing power, collectively, they represent a massive, dynamic market with vast economic potential.

In many countries, BoP-driven strategies have sparked innovation, uplifted communities, and built economic resilience. Companies have learned to design affordable, accessible products and services for these populations, recognizing that serving the many is as vital as catering to the wealthy few.

Yet, in the United States, the term "Base of the Pyramid" rarely features in political or economic discourse.

It’s not that the BoP doesn’t exist here. It does — vividly. Millions of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. They are the small business owners, gig workers, local artisans, and essential service providers who sustain their communities but often operate at the margins of the formal economy.

• The corner deli in a working-class neighborhood.

• The auto mechanic in a small Midwestern town.

• The home-based childcare provider.

• The farmers market vendor bringing fresh produce to food deserts.

These are the faces of America's BoP economy.

But unlike the grand narratives around industrial giants, the contributions and needs of these entrepreneurs and workers are rarely prioritized in policy-making. There’s little recognition of how vital they are to economic stability, community health, and democratic resilience.

The irony is stark: while American leadership champions "economic revitalization", it largely ignores the most effective pathway to achieving it — empowering the BoP economy through small business support, micro-enterprise development, and local investment.

This neglect is not just an oversight. It reflects a systemic bias toward top-down economic models, where value is presumed to flow from the top of the pyramid down, rather than rising organically from the base.

But real-world evidence — and lived experience — tells a different story. Healthy, inclusive economies grow from the ground up. They are built on a wide, stable foundation of small businesses, local enterprises, and empowered communities.

In the following sections, we'll explore how this disconnect has played out in recent policy decisions, especially under the Trump administration's latest reforms, and why a renewed focus on the BoP economy is not just desirable — it's essential for America's future.

The U.S. Economic Distortion: Focus on the Few

Despite the mythology of "Main Street" as the heart of America, economic policies in the United States have long been shaped by the priorities of "Wall Street" and corporate boardrooms. This trend has only accelerated in recent years.

Under the guise of economic revitalization, the current administration’s focus has narrowed to large-scale industrial investments—factories, infrastructure megaprojects, and tax incentives for billion-dollar corporations. High-profile figures like Elon Musk and other tech-industrial magnates dominate headlines, presenting a vision of economic strength rooted in scale, automation, and capital intensity.

Yet, beneath these grand gestures lies a stark distortion of economic priorities.

While billionaire-led ventures secure government backing and public resources, small businesses—especially those at the local and regional level—face declining support. Critical programs that sustain the small business ecosystem—grants, community development funding, access to affordable credit, and local economic initiatives—are systematically underfunded or eliminated.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) program, championed by Musk and embraced by the Trump administration, is a prime example. Ostensibly aimed at cutting bureaucratic "waste," the program has indiscriminately slashed funding for small business support services, severed federal contracts vital to micro-enterprises, and shuttered regional offices of key agencies like the Small Business Administration (SBA).

This isn't just collateral damage—it's a fundamental misalignment of economic strategy.

• Small businesses account for nearly 50% of U.S. private sector employment.

• They generate two-thirds of net new jobs.

• They foster local wealth circulation, community resilience, and bottom-up innovation.

Yet, policy makers persist in prioritizing scale over sustainability, reinforcing an economic model that funnels wealth and opportunity upwards, while ignoring the broader base that actually sustains economic health.

This top-heavy approach magnifies existing disparities:

• Rural communities are left without essential services.

• Minority-owned businesses struggle for access to capital.

• Urban micro-enterprises face regulatory and financial barriers with dwindling support.

• The gig economy grows precariously, without meaningful protections.

What’s worse, the prevailing narrative frames these outcomes as unfortunate but inevitable—suggesting that small businesses simply lack the efficiency or competitiveness to "keep up" with global giants.

But this framing misses a critical truth: Small businesses operate on a different logic. They are not designed to maximize quarterly profits for shareholders, but to meet local needs, provide meaningful employment, and build social capital. Their value is not in scale alone, but in depth, connection, and resilience.

Ignoring this reality weakens not only small businesses but the very fabric of the American economy.

In the next section, we’ll explore why inclusive economic strategies that prioritize the Base of the Pyramid are not just a moral imperative, but an economic necessity.

The Bigger Picture: Why Inclusive Economics Matter

An economy that thrives only for the few is an economy built on fragile ground.

History—and common sense—shows us that broad-based prosperity is the true foundation of economic strength. When opportunity is concentrated at the top, growth becomes brittle, innovation narrows, and social cohesion frays. This is not a matter of ideology but of practical economics.

The Base of the Pyramid (BoP) economy—comprising small businesses, micro-entrepreneurs, and lower-income consumers—is not a peripheral concern. It is the circulatory system of economic life. These are the actors who:

• Create jobs in their communities.

• Foster local supply chains.

• Drive demand for goods and services that ripple through the entire economy.

• Cultivate innovation born of necessity and proximity to real-world problems.

When the BoP economy is healthy, the benefits are far-reaching:

• Increased economic resilience in the face of shocks like pandemics, supply chain disruptions, or financial crises.

• Social stability, as more people see a tangible stake in economic success.

• Enhanced innovation ecosystems, as diverse entrepreneurs bring forward ideas that large corporations overlook.

• A more equitable distribution of wealth and opportunity, reducing systemic disparities.

Yet, these benefits remain undervalued in current U.S. policy-making circles.

Instead of supporting this vital layer of the economy, decision-makers have favored a “trickle-down” approach, assuming that investments at the top will eventually benefit the broader population. Decades of evidence suggest otherwise. The wealth generated by mega-corporations rarely filters down in meaningful ways. Instead, it often gets trapped at the top, fueling stock buybacks, executive bonuses, and speculative financial ventures disconnected from productive economic activity.

Moreover, global competitiveness arguments are frequently used to justify this top-heavy focus. But competing globally doesn't require neglecting local economies. In fact, strong, diversified local economies are a competitive advantage, fostering the kind of grassroots innovation and workforce adaptability that large-scale industries depend upon.

Inclusive economics—strategies that intentionally support BoP communities and small enterprises—are not just about fairness. They are about economic robustness, sustainability, and long-term growth.

Other countries have recognized this:

• In India, BoP-oriented models have driven microfinance revolutions, empowering millions of entrepreneurs.

• In Latin America, community cooperatives and local development funds have strengthened regional economies.

• In Europe, social enterprises and localism movements have demonstrated how small-scale, community-driven initiatives can coexist with advanced industrial economies.

The U.S., however, remains an outlier—clinging to outdated industrial strategies and neglecting the BoP as a legitimate economic force.

If we are serious about revitalizing the American economy—not just for headlines, but for real people—this must change.

In the next section, we’ll explore how the recent policy decisions under the Trump administration and business elites have further entrenched these disparities, and why recalibrating our focus toward the BoP economy is critical for the future.

Current Policy Snapshot: The DOGE Cuts & Trump Administration’s Focus

In 2025, the Trump administration, alongside business elites like Elon Musk, unveiled what they heralded as a bold new chapter of economic efficiency: the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Beneath the buzzwords of “cutting waste” and “streamlining bureaucracy,” the DOGE program initiated sweeping budget reductions across federal agencies and support programs. But instead of trimming fat, these cuts slashed into the very muscle of the U.S. small business ecosystem.

Indiscriminate Cuts, Disproportionate Harm

• Over 60% of federal contracts terminated by DOGE were held by small businesses, according to reports from the American Small Business Contracting Coalition.

• Essential support infrastructure, like Small Business Administration (SBA) offices in rural and underserved areas, were shuttered.

• Programs targeting minority-owned, veteran-owned, and women-owned small businesses faced sharp reductions or outright elimination.

• Community development grants and local economic support initiatives saw significant funding cuts, weakening the capacity for local innovation and self-sustenance.

For the elites driving these policies, the rationale was simple: large-scale investments in industrial capacity (like gigafactories, chip manufacturing, and energy megaprojects) were seen as the surest path to “re-industrialize” America.

But this strategy reveals a fundamental blind spot.

The Fallacy of Scale = Strength

In the DOGE framework, economic value is measured almost exclusively by dollar size and production output. Small businesses, by comparison, are seen as inefficient, fragmented, and incapable of delivering “big results.”

This perspective ignores the true function of small businesses in the economy:

• They are employment engines for local communities.

• They create economic diversity, reducing systemic risk.

• They are incubators of innovation, often closer to real-world needs than corporate R&D labs.

• They circulate wealth locally, fostering community resilience.

By defunding small business support structures, the DOGE program effectively undermines these critical economic functions, favoring a brittle, centralized growth model that benefits a narrow elite.

Political Myopia Meets Economic Arrogance

The Trump administration’s focus on billion-dollar factory projects aligns with a long-standing preference for visible, headline-grabbing initiatives. These projects create photo ops, campaign sound bites, and short-term boosts in industrial metrics.

But they do little to address:

• Regional economic disparities.

• The precarious state of micro-enterprises.

• The erosion of local supply chains and workforce opportunities.

• The growing wealth gap between urban tech hubs and rural heartlands.

Meanwhile, small business owners, community leaders, and everyday entrepreneurs—those who actually constitute the Base of the Pyramid economy—find themselves sidelined, their concerns dismissed as peripheral.

An Economy Designed by and for the Few

At its core, the DOGE cuts exemplify an economy designed from the top down, guided by a narrow circle of billionaires and political allies. Their decisions prioritize scale, capital efficiency, and global competitiveness—while ignoring the foundational role of small businesses in ensuring broad-based, sustainable prosperity.

It’s a model that may inflate GDP figures and stock prices in the short term, but hollows out the real economy in the long run.

In the next section, we’ll explore what a better path forward looks like—how inclusive, BoP-oriented economic strategies can revitalize the U.S. economy from the ground up, ensuring resilience, equity, and shared prosperity.

A Better Way Forward: Rethinking Economic Priorities

If America is to build a resilient, inclusive, and future-ready economy, it must rethink its priorities — moving away from a top-heavy, elite-driven model toward one that genuinely empowers the Base of the Pyramid (BoP).

1. Re-centering Small Businesses in Economic Strategy

Small businesses are not a “side hustle” to the real economy. They are the real economy for millions of Americans. Revitalizing this sector requires:

• Restoring and expanding SBA support programs, especially in underserved regions.

• Providing accessible, low-barrier financing for micro and small enterprises.

• Encouraging local sourcing, regional supply chains, and cooperative business models.

• Supporting technical assistance and mentorship networks for small entrepreneurs.

2. Building Inclusive Economic Infrastructure

Inclusive growth means investing in the infrastructure that small businesses rely on:

• Broadband access for rural and underserved urban areas.

• Affordable childcare, transportation, and healthcare, reducing barriers to entrepreneurship.

• Revitalizing Main Streets and local marketplaces as hubs of economic and social activity.

3. Recognizing BoP as a Strategic Economic Force

It's time for U.S. policymakers and business leaders to formally recognize the BoP economy as a critical pillar of national economic strategy:

• Incorporate BoP-focused economic indicators alongside traditional metrics.

• Design programs that prioritize local economic multipliers — jobs, spending, and innovation that circulate wealth within communities.

• Promote inclusive innovation — solutions designed with and for BoP communities.

4. Public-Private Collaboration with Equity at the Center

Rather than funneling public resources into already-enormous corporations, future policies should:

• Incentivize public-private partnerships that uplift small businesses and community enterprises.

• Tie corporate subsidies to demonstrable local economic benefits, such as supplier diversity, small business integration, and workforce development.

• Ensure accountability and transparency in how public funds are used to support inclusive economic outcomes.

5. A Cultural Shift: Redefining Economic Success

Finally, this shift requires rethinking what “success” means:

• Moving beyond GDP and stock market indices to measure economic health through resilience, inclusivity, and community well-being.

• Elevating narratives that celebrate local entrepreneurs, community builders, and BoP innovators.

• Reconnecting economic strategy with the values of stewardship, fairness, and shared prosperity.

In Conclusion: Building from the Base Up

An economy that serves only its top tier is inherently unstable. True strength comes from a broad, solid foundation — where small businesses thrive, communities are economically self-reliant, and opportunity is accessible to all.

By embracing BoP-oriented strategies, the United States can rebuild its economy from the ground up, ensuring a future where prosperity is not the privilege of the few, but the shared inheritance of the many.

This is not a radical vision. It’s a return to common sense economics. And it’s the only path forward that promises real, lasting strength.