One of the most significant issues facing the next president of the United States is how to improve the economy, and one of the most significant allies in that task will be the small business owners of America.
According to the US Department of Commerce, small businesses use about half of all private sector employees in the United States, and are responsible for 60-80% of net latest jobs yearly in the last 10 years. Small businesses pay about 45% of US private payrolls, and create more than half of private, non-farm gross domestic product. They make 13 times more patents per employee than large firms.
Helping small businesses is essential to the health of our economy, and Barack Obama plans to do just that. Barack Obama’s small business plan includes tax cuts and credits to small businesses.
His plan will get rid of all capital gains taxes on small and start-up businesses to persuade innovation and job creation. He also plans to offer relief to self-employed small business owners who pay taxes both on the employer and the employee side by offering a $500 “Making Work Pay” tax credit to almost every worker in America, and likes to make the R&D tax cut permanent in order to encourage innovation.
One of the major issues affecting small businesses is health-care reform. Many entrepreneurs lose their insurance coverage when they quit a previous job to start up a business of their own, and small business owners also complain that their employees are struggling to cover rising health care and insurance costs. This may not only lead to more out-of-pocket money for the business, but also to a weakened economy as clients are forced to offer more and more of their incomes to health care and insurance costs, rather than the products and services offered by small businesses.