Small business is the engine of growth for the economy

The Real State of the Economy - Small Business the Economic Engine
By Richard S Pearson

We are all ready for good economic and jobs news, but it unfortunately is not even on the horizon. The US Chamber of Commerce released its annual survey of small businesses today. Just for perspective, small businesses in the US have created two-thirds of all new jobs in the past two decades. They are this country's growth engine. Uncertainty continues to be the biggest challenge for small businesses in the latest findings:

85% say the country is headed on the wrong track, with only 12% indicating they will add new workers. This is the same percentage as last summer.

78% say taxes, regulations, and other government policies make it harder to do business and grow.

74% say the new Healthcare Law makes it harder for them to hire new employees.

86% say they would rather have more certainty from Washington than more assistance (6%) to deal with the economy.

34% believe the business climate will improve in the next 2 years, but have yet to resume hiring.

The total number of jobs available in the US has declined by 2 million since President Obama took office. We saw a glimmer of hope with the unemployment rate drop to 8.5% last month, with 200,000 new jobs added. But 373,000 discouraged workers dropped out of the labor force that month muting any improvement. One bright spot was the Healthcare sector, which added 315,000 new jobs during the past year. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Liberal politicians call for more government spending to stimulate the economy but the last $787 billion (that's billion not million) doesn't appear to have helped. The President was caught on camera joking about so-called shovel ready jobs - which evidently did not really exist. President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation's economic output by 2020, the Congressional Budget Office reported. The unnerving part of this report is that this is including the budget cutbacks proposed by the President! We are in such a deep hole that it is next to impossible to even tax our way out of it at this point.

We, as a country, must seriously look at a balanced budget amendment. We are headed to become another Greece fiscally speaking - only on a monstrous scale - without any other country or countries able to bail us out. It will require some tough choices but for the sake of the next generation we better get our act together soon.

Richard S. Pearson is the Author of 5 Necessary Skills to Keep Your Career on Track, 2nd edition, available on Amazon. He has held vice-president positions with four multibillion dollar travel industry companies and three Internet early stage companies. He has a BA degree from Regis University in Organizational Development. His experience has given him a unique perspective on how to navigate the organizational structures of both large and small companies. He has hired and trained hundreds of employees from frontline salespeople to vice presidents, and coached many through their careers. He is currently working on facilitating the large increase of travel between the US and China, which is taking place. http://outskirtspress.com/webpage.php?ISBN=978-1-4327-4137-2

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