Commentary: Biden EPA’s Latter-Day Prohibition Targets Auto Industry

Tesla Factory

Not since Prohibition has the federal government sought to ban a product as popular as the internal combustion engine.

This week, the Environmental Protection Agency released its final emissions standards rule, requiring that 70% of new vehicle sales be pure battery-powered electric or hybrids by 2032.

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Rampant Crime Takes Toll on America’s Small Businesses, New Survey Reveals

Small Business

Nearly one-third of small business employers in January said that crime has raised everyday business costs, according to a Job Creators Network Foundation (JCNF) poll obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Around 31% of small businesses surveyed in January said that neighborhood crime has increased business costs through added expenses associated with extra security or stolen inventory, with employers in the western U.S. being the most likely to say they were affected at 35%, according to the poll. Businesses with $100,000 to $250,000 in revenue in a year were the most likely to say that neighborhood crime has increased business costs, with 53% saying yes, followed by businesses with less than $100,000 in revenue at 47%.

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Commentary: New Biden Labor Dept. Rule Likely to Hurt Millions of Small Businesses, Independent Contractors

Remote Worker

Some 99% of American companies are small businesses, and 100% of businesses started out small, but a recently finalized rule from the Biden administration’s Labor Department will make it harder for small businesses to start, grow and succeed.

As of last May 1, a White House news release pointed out, “Young firms, which often start small with few employees, are a driving force in job creation.” That’s been particularly true since the COVID-19 pandemic, as small businesses with fewer than 50 employees have accounted for a growing share of new jobs.

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Small Businesses, Lawmakers Push Back on Financial Reporting Regulation

Small Business Owner

A coalition of small businesses, U.S. senators and representatives sent a letter to the Biden administration calling for a one-year delay in a new rule requiring businesses with as few as 20 employees to report financial information about the business’ beneficial owners.

Under the rule, small businesses will be required to report personal information about their owners, board members, senior management and legal representation and could face civil or even criminal penalties for failure to do so.

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Small Business Owners Pessimistic About the Economy, Poll Shows

Small business owners are pessimistic about the future of the economy, according to a new poll.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses released the polling data Tuesday, which shows that the group’s “Small Businesses Optimism Index” decreased slightly in November to 90.1, its 23rd straight month below the historical average of small business optimism.

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Commentary: Bidenomics Is The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

The labor market continues to soften, with 199,000 jobs created last month, well below the recent average. Real job creation is far lower than this topline number suggests. Nearly 50,000 jobs were unproductive government jobs, continuing the trend of disproportionately high government job growth. The return of striking auto workers accounted for about 30,000 jobs. And 77,000 jobs were created in healthcare, which is a quasi-government industry. That leaves only about 40,000 jobs created in the real economy.

Real wages continue to stagnate, growing at the same rate as core inflation following significant declines in the first two years of Biden’s presidency. As usual, job creation in previous months was revised down in today’s report. Nearly one million more Americans are unemployed since April.

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Small Business Owners Report Lower Consumer Spending Going into Holiday Season

Newly released survey data shows that small businesses are pessimistic about their retail sales going into the holiday season.

The Main Street Merchant Report released Tuesday by Alignable, a network of thousands of small businesses, are not optimistic about their sales for small businesses this weekend.

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Small Businesses Feel the Pain of Inflation-Driven Interest Rates

Small business owners are feeling the pain of inflation-driven interest rate hikes, another difficulty for those owners to overcome as they continue to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic-era shutdowns.

A rash of federal spending and an increase in the money supply in recent years have fueled inflationary pressures. Prices soared during the beginning of the Biden administration, making it hard for Americans to make ends meet.

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Commentary: California’s War Against Prosperity

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy, generating 44 percent of all business activity. Take them out of the equation, and the economy collapses. But that is exactly what’s happening. The cards are stacked against small businesses in America today, and nowhere is it worse than in the state of California. 

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Small Businesses Struggle to Fill Job Openings, Report Finds

A newly released survey of small businesses shows that nearly half are having trouble filling job openings.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses released the survey, which found that 44% of small business owners report being unable to fill current job openings, a full 20 points higher than the average reading over the last 49 years.

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Small Businesses Are Less Optimistic About the Future, Survey Finds

Small businesses are less optimistic about the future, a newly released survey shows.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses released survey results showing their small business optimism index decreased in March, “marking the 15th consecutive month below the 49-year average of 98.”

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New Report Finds Wisconsin Local Government Strangling Home Businesses with Red Tape

The Badger State’s home-based businesses are facing a bureaucratic nightmare of red tape, according to a new report by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. 

WILL’s new policy report, “Wisconsin: A Broken Home for Home-Based Businesses,” analyzes the relative burden of regulations on the businesses in the state’s 20 most populous communities. 

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Poll: Small Businesses See Signs of Hope After Brutal 2022

Despite a historically tight labor market, small business owners reported that hiring difficulties had eased in December, markedly improving compared to November, according to a poll conducted by Vistage Worldwide for the Wall Street Journal published Friday.

Of the roughly 650 small business owners polled, almost 25% reported that hiring was easier in December than at the start of the year, while just 20% said it was harder, according to the WSJ. In November, those numbers were 18% and 25% respectively, and some small business owners reported success thanks to pay raises and hiring freezes or layoffs at larger firms.

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Small Businesses Report Hardship Due to Inflation This Christmas Season

Small businesses around the country still see inflation as a top concern this Christmas season.

Goldman Sachs released survey data that found that 52% of surveyed small business owners say that their profitability “has not met expectations. Even while an overwhelming 79% have increased prices compared to last year.”

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Report: 41 Percent of Small Businesses Can’t Pay Rent in November

More than 40% of U.S. small business owners say they couldn’t pay rent on time or in full for the month of November, the highest this year.

The small business network group Alignable released the survey, which found that the hardship varies by industry. A notable 57% of beauty salons said they couldn’t make rent as well as 45% of gyms, 44% of retail and 44% of restaurants.

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Survey: Growing Number of Small Businesses Can’t Pay Rent

Newly released small business survey data shows that an alarming number of businesses are unable to pay rent.

Alignable released its monthly small business report for October which showed 37% of American small business owners were unable to pay rent on time or in full last month. That is up from 30% who said the same the month before.

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Inflation Is Number One Concern for Struggling Small Businesses

Newly released polling data shows inflation is a top concern for small businesses as prices continue to rise.

The National Federation of Independent Business released the survey, which shows that 30% of owners named inflation as the single-most important problem in running their business.

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Job Creators Network Partners with Newt Gingrich for ‘American Small Business Prosperity Plan’

A small business advocacy group has partnered with former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich to announce a plan on Wednesday to boost small businesses, fix the economy and provide opportunities for all Americans. The group announced the plan at Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Hill Club with a variety of speakers, including Gingrich who appeared live from a virtual location.

The Job Creators Network says the purpose of their American Small Business Prosperity Plan is to give members of Congress and their midterm challengers specific policies that would move America toward a positive, pro-growth economic agenda.

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Report: Record 63 Percent of Small Businesses Freeze Hiring

Small businesses are increasingly unwilling to hire because they can’t afford to take on new costs, according to a newly released survey.

The small business network company Alignable released the survey Wednesday. It found that 63% report putting hiring on hold “because they can’t afford to add staff, and 10% of that group is laying off workers.”

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Small Businesses Might Drop Obamacare as Premiums Skyrocket

Health insurance premiums offered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), colloquially known as Obamacare, will rise next year, hitting small businesses particularly hard and potentially pressuring them to drop out of the program.

While recent provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act have provided additional subsidies for individual consumers that will likely offset the increased cost of premiums, no such support was granted to small business owners, according to the Wall Street Journal. Insurers are proposing median premium increases of 10%, but some are proposing increases as high as 20%.

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Nearly Half of Small Businesses Are in Hiring Freeze, Citing Inflation and Costs

Nearly half of small business owners are not willing to hire because of labor costs and “skyrocketing inflation,” a newly released small business report shows.

The small business network Alignable released its July Hiring report which found that “45% of small businesses (SMBs) are halting their hiring, largely because they say they can’t afford to add staff.

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Big Business Wins Again: Biden Climate Rules Will Hurt Small Companies Most

America’s top financial regulator issued climate disclosure rules that are more burdensome for smaller companies than large companies, according to the agency’s own analysis.

While the rules would cost large corporations $640,000 at first and $530,000 in subsequent years, they would cost smaller publicly-traded companies $490,000 initially and $420,000 in following years, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said in its proposal. The regulator’s analysis suggests that smaller companies would feel a relatively larger financial burden as a result of the proposed disclosure rules.

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Small Businesses Struggle to Survive in Biden’s Economy: Poll

Small business owners are increasingly pessimistic about U.S. economic conditions and overwhelmingly support an expansion of domestic fossil fuel infrastructure, the latest polling data showed.

Just 27% of small business owners agreed the economy was in “good” or “excellent” condition, according to a Job Creators Network Foundation poll released Friday and shared with The Daily Caller News Foundation. The figure represented the lowest rating of the current economic situation among small business owners since the group began the poll a year ago.

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Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: Democratic Proposal Will Let the IRS Snoop on Your Bank Account

Woman holding credit card, laptop open in front of her

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board said that a Democratic effort to crack down on tax cheating would give the Treasury Department access to almost every American’s bank account.

The Thursday op-ed focused on a proposal that would require financial institutions to report individual accounts containing at least $10,000 to the IRS. That effort, the board wrote, would affect the vast majority of Americans who did not exclusively use cash to make purchases and pay bills.

“The details are murky, but most Americans could still get ensnared in this dragnet unless they pay bills and buy goods in cash,” the editorial board wrote. “Democrats say banks will only have to report total annual inflows and outflows, not discrete transactions. But nearly all Americans spend more than $10,000 a year.”

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Commentary: IRS Guidance Would Punish Small Business Owners with Families

Outside of IRS building

Most IRS guidance documents make for poor pleasure reading. Then again, most IRS guidance doesn’t effectively impose a retroactive tax on small business owners merely for having a family. IRS Notice 2021-49, issued on August 4, includes a bizarre interpretation of the law that will effectively raise taxes for business owners with close relatives, even if their family members have no involvement in the company.

A core goal of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed early on in the pandemic was to assist businesses in keeping employees on their payroll even as they dealt with the economic effects of lockdowns. Part of the plan was the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC), which provides a tax credit against employer payroll tax liabilities.

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Facebook Buys up the Outstanding Invoices of Minority-Owned Small Businesses

Facebook is spending $100 million to buy up the outstanding invoices of small businesses owned by women, racial minorities, veterans, disabled people and LGBTQ+ people, the company announced last week.

The Invoice Fast Track Program allows certain “small, midsize and diverse-owned businesses” to submit outstanding invoices to Facebook. The tech giant then buys the invoices, giving the business cash immediately, and the business’ customers pay Facebook instead.

The program is designed to help “diverse-owned” businesses improve their cash flow and hire more employees, according to the program’s description.

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