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Policy Matters: Work, Work, Work
a weekly column
by Dawn Rivers Baker
I spent the entire week last week in Minnesota's Twin Cities, talking up microbusinesses and presenting my research findings at the state capitol in St. Paul.
I am happy to report that politicians are politicians, wherever you find them.
So, for that matter are policy and data wonks. But that's a different article.
One of the points and data points to which I was careful to draw everybody's attention was the fact that we in these United States have 22.4 million nonemployer businesses (or at least, we did back in 2007; there are probably many more of them now).
These nonemployer businesses represent self-employed individuals running businesses without paid employees. They don't have access to any of our social safety nets because all our social safety nets are tied to employment.
But it wasn't until the weekend, when I was back in my own office and browsing an article in Saturday's issue of the New York Times that I realized I had missed the most important point myself.
Read article
This week's news briefs
House Set To Pass Smaller Health Care Bills
After all the drama surrounding the down-to-the-wire Senate health care reform bill, which was finally passed on Christmas Eve, 2009, it's a bit anticlimactic to have to report that President Obama is still having to urge Senate Democrats to ‘finish the job.' There remain enough differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill to cast its future into doubt. Meanwhile, along more practical lines, House leadership is preparing to shepherd a series of smaller health care bills through their chamber. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was quick to note that the smaller bills were not to be considered a substitute for the big bill. So, with Congressional Democrats doing their best headless chicken act and Congressional Republicans going very zen and calmly saying ‘no' to absolutely everything, the stage is set for the first of those smaller bills to hit the pike.
That would be the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act, a piece of legislation that was supposed to have been introduced at the beginning of this month but that still evidently does not have a bill number. The bill is one of those very refreshing items that is brief and to the point. It is precisely two pages long and does nothing other than to cause federal anti-trust laws to apply to health insurance and medical malpractice insurance carriers, which is currently not the case. This one is slated for a vote later this week, provided that House Democrats can manage to suspend the rules and consider the bill without a Committee report. One suspects that will not be much of a problem. On the other hand, one also suspects that is as far is it may get. The Senate has enough on its plate to ignore all these little health care bills without noticeable effort.
4Q Indicators Show Slow Early Recovery
Last week, the SBA Office of Advocacy released the latest in its series of Quarterly Indicators briefs, this time reporting on the fourth quarter of 2009. So, now, I get to throw a bunch of numbers at you, the good news being that there will not be a quiz when I'm done. The Commerce Department announced earlier this month that its advance estimate of fourth quarter gross domestic product (GDP) was a white hot 5.7%, although that will probably be revised downward in subsequent reports. Much of the GDP growth recorded during the fourth quarter stemmed from businesses finally replacing inventories, a spike in exports and a slowing in the growth of imports, and slight growth (a scant 2%) in personal consumption. The employment picture remained weak, with unemployment at 10% at the end of the year. The economy lost a net 310,000 jobs during the quarter; in total, the U.S. economy shed 4.8 million jobs in 2009.
By the end of the year, everybody was also starting to feel better about the economy. Consumer sentiment, as measured by the University of Michigan, was higher for the month of December (72.5) than the overall average for the year (66.3). Small business owner optimism, as measured by the National Federation of Independent Business, was down slightly for the quarter (-0.8) and up in December 2009 by 2.8 points over the December 2008 measure. Business spending and hiring plans remain tentative. There was some slight easing in the small business credit market. Banks report weak demand, while small business owners continue to say they can't get loans. The SBA lending picture has markedly improved over last year: 7(a) loans were up by more than $300 million, while 504 dollar volume had improved by $99 million in December 2009, compared to December 2008.
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