Technological advancement’s impact has significantly affected the entire United States economy, including the increasing self-employment tax burden for many Americans struggling to keep their head above water. Small business failure continues while many Americans see self-employment tax burden increase. The number of business failures started outpacing new business startups in 2008, coinciding with the Global Financial Crisis. Research in the Literature presented evidence that technological advancement was the most significant factor causing the housing price increase facing the country today. The false conclusion that the United States economy experienced a housing bubble in the past was because policymakers did not understand that once local housing markets transformed into global housing markets through technological transformation between 1995 and 1999. Because the trend of failure of small business coincided with the Global Financial Crisis the evidence suggested there are questions policymakers need to understand about how technological advancement has influenced economic policy failures. The impact of technological advancement on the increasing burden of self-employment taxes for many hardworking Americans is also a topic of consideration for policymakers as tax reform policies become a priority of the incoming Trump Administration. Many policymakers stuck in their thinking of policy positions based on the past have yet to consider the need to adopt new policies as the country moves into the new age of information technology. Policymakers have debated wage stagnation and approaches to increasing working families’ income in the United States. Still, they have yet to consider self-employment tax reform policies as an option to expand the middle class. Many policymakers have not considered how employment has evolved because of technological advancement and the gig economy. Policies aimed at adjusting to the technologically driven economy can help lift families into the middle class as the country adapts to today’s technologically driven economic environment. Many on the political Left have called for a minimum wage increase to lift families into the middle class. At the same time, the Right argues that employers will pass the cost along to customers or reduce labor costs through automation, which will eliminate jobs. The study by Gindling (2024) concluded that increasing the minimum wage has a marginal impact on decreasing poverty, so there are more practical solutions than increasing the minimum wage. Policies that can help the economy flourish in the new technological advancement-driven information economy are critical to the debate. Eddison Walters Self-Employment Tax Modernization Reform Entrepreneurship Revitalization Negative Marginal Returns Adjustment Theory highlights the need to adopt self-employment tax reform policies to encourage entrepreneurship and facilitate economic growth as the American economy adapts to the technological advancement-driven economy.
