The NEW START Act creates a pilot program to help formerly incarcerated people start their own businesses. The Small Business Administration will give grants to organizations that teach entrepreneurship skills and provide business support to people who've been released from prison. This support can include things like business training classes and small loans to help them get their ventures off the ground. The idea is to give people coming out of the criminal justice system a real chance to build legitimate livelihoods through self-employment rather than returning to crime. To make sure the program actually works, the Government Accountability Office will study how well it's doing—looking at what services are being provided, how well the SBA is overseeing everything, and whether the program is actually helping formerly incarcerated individuals succeed in starting businesses.

NEW START Act of 2023

Cardin, Benjamin L.

Necessary Entrepreneurship Workshops via the SBA to Transform and Assist Re-entry Training Act of 2023 or the NEW START Act of 2023 This bill establishes a pilot program for providing entrepreneurial development assistance to formerly incarcerated individuals. Specifically, the bill requires the Small Business Administration to establish a pilot program whereby it awards grants to organizations or partnerships that create or support entrepreneurship programs for providing assistance to formerly incarcerated individuals. Such assistance shall be in the form of entrepreneurial development programming that may include the disbursement of microloans. The Government Accountability Office must submit a report evaluating the (1) services that grant recipients provide to formerly incarcerated individuals, (2) oversight of the pilot program by the SBA, and (3) overall performance and impacts of the pilot program.