Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry

The pa Chamber serves as the frontline advocate for Business in Pennsylvania. Our highly visible government affairs team takes action to influence public policy at the state and federal level and works to ensure that the concerns of our members are being heard by elected officials. Through lobbying, testifying and submitting comments to standing legislative committees, developing key relationships, engaging in grassroots activities, and tracking bills and regulations, the pa Chamber promotes pro-business legislation and fights anti-business legislation with one goal in mind: improving the Business climate and creating a better quality of life for every Pennsylvanian. Legislative victories on behalf of our membersin 2022, the pa Chamber achieved several long sought-after victories on behalf of its broad-based membership! Many of these accomplishments will go a long way to improving our competitiveness among other states and help to attract more Business investment, thereby increasing jobs and improving the quality of life for employers, workers and families throughout Pennsylvania. Most notably, act 53 of 2022 the most monumental tax reform package in decades was enacted in partnership with the pa Chamber, a strong bipartisan coalition of lawmakers and former gov. Tom wolf. The law cuts the state's corporate net income rate in half from 9.99 percent (the second highest cni in the nation) to 4.99 percent by 2031 (the 8th lowest). In addition, act 53 included tax reforms that make Pennsylvania more attractive to small to mid-sized employers, including like-kind exchanges that let employers defer personal income tax liabilities when one property is exchanged for another property; and section 79 expense deductions, allowing businesses to deduct the full purchase price of qualifying equipment, in order to be consistent with federal law. Both of these small Business reforms encourage employers to invest more in their facilities, and their workforce.also in 2022, the pa Chamber was instrumental in enacting laws that are helping advance infrastructure projects in the commonwealth; helped meet employers' workforce needs now and in the future; prevented an unfair unemployment compensation rate increase on roughly 2,700 Pennsylvania businesses; barred the commonwealth from joining the costly regional greenhouse gas initiative; and more.additional pa Chamber 2022 achievements, and throughout the entirety of the 2021-22 session, can be found in this comprehensive end of session report.

The pa Chamber's member-centric marketing team is a statewide leader providing the statewide Business community the latest in compliance education, training, and b2b connectivity, offering countless engagement opportunities and invaluable information both in-person and online. In 2022, the pa Chamber hosted 30 webinars and conferences that focused on leading hr-related topics, environmental and energy issues, it security, and leadership; hosted the annual Business golf outing; and continued to host member-sponsored webinars to allow our members to provide their expertise in a number of subject areas to a Business audience. We also hosted our women in Business conference to an in-person audience for the first time and vowed to expand it in subsequent years due to its popularity and opportunities for topical content; along with our first-ever clay shoot, a signature event held in the western region of the commonwealth.

In early october 2022, the pa Chamber welcomed hundreds of its members and elected officials to the hershey lodge for the 38th annual Chamber dinner. The event was held just weeks before the november general election, with the nation's eyes turned to Pennsylvania in advance of some of the most closely watched political races in the nation including the state's gubernatorial race and one for a seat in the u.s. senate. The top of the evening's program was a lively point/counterpoint discussion on Pennsylvania's key role in the nation's political story with two of the country's foremost political commentators, former republican new jersey governor chris christie and democratic national committee chairwoman donna brazile; and was followed by two highly anticipated, individual fireside chats (the only of their kind during the entirety of the political season) that were moderated by pa Chamber president and ceo luke bernstein and featured republican u.s. senate candidate dr. mehmet oz and then-democratic gubernatorial candidate and attorney general josh shapiro.