Our Research
Small business owners nationwide are recovering from the Great Recession and slowly fortifying their businesses. It is the jobs these small businesses provide and the consumers they serve that keeps our recovery moving. Entrepreneurs nationwide recognize we need to foster this trend.
When the Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010, it delivered sweeping reform to the nation’s healthcare system. A significant feature of the law is an expansion of Medicaid to cover a larger number of low-income individuals. In June 2012, the Supreme Court ruled it was up to each state to decide whether to expand eligibility for Medicaid.
Across all industries and from one end of the political spectrum to the other, small business owners recognize that without comprehensive immigration reform, U.S. small firms and the economy cannot maximize job creation or revenue generation.
Lawmakers dodged an economic bullet at the end of 2012 when they came to an 11th hour agreement on the highly publicized “fiscal cliff” issue. Not two months later, policymakers have yet another obstacle in their path that could have dire consequences for small business and the economy: what’s known in D.C.
Signed into law on Feb. 5, 1993, the Family Medical Leave Act allows eligible employees of covered employers to take a limited amount of unpaid, job-protected leave for certain family and medical reasons, and have their benefits maintained. Twenty years later, scientific opinion polling has found small businesses strongly support the decades-old law.
Small businesses are working hard to move their companies, and our economy, beyond the recession. As much as they’ve already accomplished to lift employment levels, these entrepreneurs are not immune to the lingering effects of our disrupted financial market, and they want smart steps taken to address their needs.
For the second time since the summer of 2011, Congress is debating whether or not to raise the federal debt ceiling—the legal limit on how much the federal government can borrow. While addressing our debt is an important issue that carries weight for small business and the economy, some politicians have been misusing the debt ceiling as a mechanism for furthering their own partisan agendas.
As small business owners prepare to close the books on 2012, our country is fast approaching the edge of what’s been dubbed the “fiscal cliff.” This critical situation—created by a host of tax cuts set to expire at the end of 2012, coupled with billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts that will be triggered if Congress and the president can’t agree on a way to reduce the deficit by year’s
Small businesses have become a key weapon in politicians’ arsenals when arguing for practically any policy that has an economic impact. Policies associated with the current tax debate are no exception.
Small businesses are one of the most respected constituencies in the country, and certainly one of the most courted by policymakers in Washington. However, small businesses are also a group that legislators and the general public understand little about—the very smallest ones, especially. Those businesses are known as “micro businesses.”