America’s Apprentice: Make the First Hire a National Goal

By Brian French. Brian French is founder and publisher of the Florida Authority Network and a Florida business news analyst with more than 20 years of experience as an analyst and money manager.

Quick Answer: Most U.S. businesses have no employees, and turning even a small share of those solo owners into first-time employers would create millions of jobs. If one in 10 of America’s 30 million self-employed businesses hired one person, that would mean about 3 million new jobs, triple the White House’s apprenticeship goal. An “America’s Apprentice” program built around the first hire could be one of the most powerful job policies the country has never tried.

The Job Policy Hiding in Plain Sight

Washington and Tallahassee spend enormous energy chasing jobs. They court headquarters, negotiate incentive packages for factories, fund workforce boards and announce training grants.

What almost no one targets directly is the single most common hiring decision in the American economy: a self-employed person deciding whether to bring on their first worker.

That decision happens, or fails to happen, millions of times a year in garages, home offices, service vans and small storefronts. And it may be the biggest untapped source of job growth in the country.

The goal is simple enough to fit on a bumper sticker: help every self-employed business owner who wants to grow make their first hire.

The Power of One

Start with the scale of the opportunity.

In 2023, the U.S. had 30.4 million nonemployer businesses, firms run by owners with no paid staff. Florida alone had 3,117,327 of them, more than six times its 500,294 businesses with employees.

Now imagine a modest goal: one in 10 of those owners makes a single hire.

If 1 in 10 Solo Businesses Hired One Worker	New Jobs
Florida (3.1 million solo businesses)	About 312,000
United States (30.4 million solo businesses)	About 3 million

Calculated from Census nonemployer counts.

For comparison, consider one of the most ambitious workforce goals in recent memory. In April 2025, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to plan how to reach and surpass 1 million new active apprentices. When that goal was set, the Registered Apprenticeship system had about 679,000 active apprentices after a decade of growth.

A first-hire goal reaching just 10% of solo businesses would produce roughly three times the apprenticeship target, and it would put those jobs in every ZIP code in America, not just in industries with established training programs.

Why the First Hire Is the Hardest

Every business owner who has made a first hire remembers the moment. It’s when the business stops being “me” and becomes “us.”

It’s also when the business crosses a line that no later hire will ever match. The 11th employee is incremental. The first employee is transformational. Overnight, the owner becomes responsible for payroll withholding, reemployment tax registration, new-hire reporting, minimum wage compliance, workers’ compensation where required, and legal liability for someone else’s conduct on the job.

And the owner typically has no one to help. There’s no HR department, no payroll staff, no in-house counsel. Just the same person who already runs sales, operations, billing and customer service.

The money is daunting too. At Florida’s $15 minimum wage, which took effect Sept. 30, 2026, one full-time worker earns $31,200 a year before employer taxes or any benefits. For a business whose average gross receipts are roughly $59,000, based on Census totals, that’s more than half of everything coming in the door.

That’s why so many owners stall at zero. It’s not that they don’t want help. It’s that the first step is a cliff, not a stair.

The Ripple Effect of One Hire

A first hire doesn’t just create one job. It changes the trajectory of a business, a family and a neighborhood.

For the Worker

A first job at a small business is often a person’s on-ramp to the workforce: a teenager’s first paycheck, a returning parent’s way back, a career changer’s foot in the door. Small employers frequently teach the practical skills that larger organizations expect workers to already have.

For the Owner

An employee frees the owner to do the work only the owner can do: selling, planning, serving key customers and building the business. Many owners describe their first hire as the moment their business finally had room to grow. And a business that successfully makes one hire is far more likely to make a second.

For the Community

Wages paid by local small businesses tend to be spent locally, at the grocery store, the auto shop and the restaurant down the street. Those dollars become revenue for other small businesses, which may then make their own first hire.

For Government

A new employee pays payroll and income taxes and may rely less on public assistance. A thriving owner pays more in taxes too.

Here is the scale, using the illustrative 1-in-10 goal and Florida’s minimum wage as a floor.

Illustrative First-Hire Impact	Florida	United States
New jobs	About 312,000	About 3 million
Annual wages at $15/hour, full time	About $9.7 billion	About $95 billion

FloridaBusinessNews analysis. Assumes every new job is full time at Florida’s $15 minimum wage; actual wages and hours would vary.

That’s a minimum. Many first hires would pay above the wage floor, and the spending ripple from those paychecks would extend well beyond the wages themselves.

Learning From Apprenticeship’s Success

The U.S. already has a model for helping employers train workers: Registered Apprenticeship. And by most measures, it works.

Recent federal data shows about 700,714 active apprentices across 26,714 registered programs, involving 60,361 employers. The total has since reached roughly 714,000. Completers in recent years have earned average annual wages of about $80,000 in their first year after finishing, more than associate-degree holders.

Florida has been a standout. The state reported more than 25,000 active apprentices and pre-apprentices in its 2024-2025 report, an 11% increase in a single year. Since 2019, Florida has seen a 70% increase in registered apprentices and a 153% increase in apprenticeable occupations.

But look closely at one number. About 60,000 employers participate nationally. The U.S. has roughly 5.9 million employer firms and more than 30 million self-employed businesses. Apprenticeship today reaches a tiny sliver of America’s businesses, and almost none of the solo owners who represent the biggest job opportunity of all.

The system was largely built around construction trades, manufacturers and large employers with the scale to run formal programs. A one-person landscaping company or a solo bookkeeping practice doesn’t have the bandwidth to register and administer a program.

The Idea: America’s Apprentice

What if the country built a program designed specifically for the first hire?

Call it America’s Apprentice: a national initiative, with state partners like Florida, aimed at helping self-employed owners hire and train their first employee. Here’s what it could include.

1. A First-Hire Credit

Give qualifying businesses a tax credit for their first employee’s first year of wages. The U.S. already has a hiring credit model, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, worth up to $9,600 per qualifying hire from certain targeted groups. But its authority lapsed on Jan. 1, 2026, leaving employers without it unless Congress acts. A credit aimed at first-time employers would focus the incentive where hiring is hardest.

2. Apprenticeship Without the Bureaucracy

Create a simplified “first-hire apprenticeship” track. Instead of each tiny business registering its own program, intermediaries, such as community colleges, trade associations, chambers of commerce or workforce boards, would sponsor the program and handle the paperwork. The owner provides the job and the mentoring. The sponsor provides the structure.

3. Payroll in a Box

Offer first-time employers a single sign-up that handles federal withholding, state reemployment tax registration and new-hire reporting in one step, with one checklist and one point of contact.

4. A Grace Period for Good Faith

Give first-time employers a learning window to fix honest paperwork mistakes before penalties apply, as long as workers are paid properly and treated fairly.

5. Shared Training Support

Pair first-time employers with mentors, such as retired business owners or experienced employers in the same field, who can help them learn to supervise, schedule and train their first worker.

6. Measure What Matters

Track how many businesses make their first hire each year, by state and county. If policymakers celebrate that number the way they celebrate corporate relocations, they’ll start designing policy around it.

How America Could Change

The payoff from a successful first-hire strategy would reach far beyond the job count.

More resilient local economies. Jobs spread across millions of small businesses are less vulnerable to a single plant closing or a corporate headquarters moving.

Better entry points for workers. Young people, career changers and people re-entering the workforce would gain more ways to get started, with mentoring from the owner rather than a distant manager.

A stronger middle class of business owners. Owners who can grow beyond solo work build wealth, create stability for their families and eventually hire more people.

Broad-based opportunity. First-hire jobs would appear in rural towns, suburbs and city neighborhoods alike, wherever there’s a solo owner ready to grow.

A pipeline for skilled trades. Many solo businesses are in fields like electrical work, HVAC, plumbing and landscaping, where apprentice-style training is natural and demand is high.

The Honest Tradeoffs

A program like this would come with real questions.

Tax credits cost money, and some would go to businesses that would have hired anyway. Simplified rules must still protect workers’ pay and safety. Not every solo owner wants to become an employer, and that’s fine. And with AI tools increasingly handling tasks small businesses once hired for, a first-hire program would need to focus on roles where human workers add clear value.

But those are design challenges, not reasons to ignore the opportunity. The country already spends heavily to attract large employers. Directing even part of that energy toward the first hire would put job creation where most businesses actually are.

The Most Important Number in the Economy

America’s economic debate usually focuses on big numbers: GDP, the S&P 500, monthly payroll reports, unemployment rates.

Maybe it’s time to focus on a small one.

One. One employee. One business crossing the line from self-employed to employer. One worker getting a start. Multiply that by millions, and it could reshape Florida and the country.

The first hire is the hardest. Public policy should make it easier.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many U.S. businesses have no employees?

About 30.4 million U.S. businesses had no paid employees in 2023. Florida had about 3.1 million.

How many jobs would be created if self-employed owners hired one worker?

If one in 10 U.S. solo businesses hired one person, that would create about 3 million jobs. In Florida, the same rate would create about 312,000 jobs.

What is America’s Apprentice?

It’s a proposed program concept, not an existing program, built around helping self-employed owners make and train their first hire through a tax credit, simplified apprenticeship sponsorship, streamlined payroll setup and mentoring.

How successful are registered apprenticeships?

Registered apprenticeship completers have earned an average of about $80,000 in their first year after finishing. The U.S. has roughly 714,000 active apprentices, and Florida has more than 25,000 apprentices and pre-apprentices.

Is there a federal tax credit for hiring?

The Work Opportunity Tax Credit offered up to $9,600 per qualifying hire from certain groups, but its authority lapsed on Jan. 1, 2026, unless Congress renews it.

Why is the first hire so difficult?

The first employee requires a business to take on payroll taxes, state registrations, new-hire reporting, wage and safety rules, and legal liability, usually without any HR or administrative staff.

Sources and Further Reading

1. Census Bureau Releases New Data About Characteristics of Employer and Nonemployer Business Owners, U.S. Census Bureau
2. QuickFacts: Florida, U.S. Census Bureau
3. Executive Order 14278, Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future, The American Presidency Project
4. One Million Apprentices, Two Years to Go, WorkShift
5. Region 6 Quarterly Report, Winter 2026, U.S. Department of Labor Office of Apprenticeship
6. A GAO Review of Registered Apprenticeships, Community College Daily
7. Florida Celebrates Record Growth in Apprenticeship and Preapprenticeship Programs, Florida Department of Education
8. America’s SBDC Blog, citing Census Annual Business Survey
9. How to Hire a Worker in Florida, Deel
10. Florida Raises Minimum Wage to $15, Effective Sept. 30, HR Morning
11. What Is the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, TurboTax
12. Work Opportunity Tax Credit: Benefits, Eligibility, and How It Works, Darwinbox