Posted on 03/04/2009 3:04:00 PM PST by tobyhill
The U.S. shed 697,000 non-farm jobs January to February, exceeding expectations by 67,000, a research group said Wednesday. Payroll company Automatic Data Processing Inc. also said December to January's job losses were far greater than previously reported, revising that month's total to 614,000 lost jobs, an increase of 92,000. The recent figure puts February as having the highest monthly job loss total since the recession began in December 2007. Construction jobs shrank for the 25th consecutive month, losing 114,000 jobs. The figure pushes construction job losses since January 2007 over the 1 million mark. Service jobs also declined, losing 359,000 in the month. Manufacturing jobs, down for 36 months, fell by 219,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Oh it is worse than that. O wants to be able to allow companies with 20 or more employees to unionize. Say you built a company up and one day one employee mentions a union a few sign a paper saying they MIGHT want a union. Next week you are unionized. Sound crazy? It is.
Makes many small businessmen seriously consider whether employee number 20 is worth hiring.
We already think he’s not.
1099 contractors is how we do it. I just printed out a legislative update that pertains to the huge stimulus bill O signed into law. ...... COBRA changes and “Making Work Pay” provision for tax years 2009/2010. Will give workers the lesser of $400 for individuals and $800 for couples, or 6.2% of earned income. These amounts taper off for individuals earning over 75K or couples earning over 150K (ya know,,the ‘rich’).
The credit will be achieved via a change to (get this) withholidng tax tables effective no later than April 2009. Administratively,,this is just the beginning of the payroll nightmare for small business, such as ours.
Then there is COBRA - geesh. There is a Premium Subsidy, a Special COBRA Election Period and another COBRA Plan Enrollment Option.
Plus, in regards to COBRA, the creation of a person described as an “Assistance Eligible Individual (AEI). This special AEI only has to pay 35% of their benefits costs to their employer,,and the employer pays the other 65%. This is being described as a FEDERAL SUBSIDY to those eligible individuals. For a max of 9 months. The Feds will reimburse the employer for the 65% by ALLOWING them to take a credit against their quarterly employer tax filings. The first quarter 2009 tax form 941 has been redesigned for Employers. Plus there are rules on top of all this.
What a freaking nightmare.
Many small businesses are going to get screwed in July when the federal minimum wage increases 11% during a recession. A lot of those small businesses will not survive that blow.
We agree.
It’s really counterproductive to your business when you are forced to consider the impact of crossing a federal regulatory employee limit before you hire a much-needed person (oftentimes deciding to remain smaller to avoid the costs and hassles of dealing with yet another mandate).
Be careful in your use of the 1099 contractors. Check with your lawyer to make sure you aren’t controlling the way they perform the job to the point that they are deemed to be employees. There are several legal criteria which, if the contract laborers meet them, can put you in hot water for misclassifying employees as contractors.
don’t worry.
new taxes
new regulations
unionizing small companies.
Its all going to help.
LOLOLOL
Yes, you are so right!
LOTS of rules,,which are probably going to multiply under O. Thanks for the heads up. You are correct and I think the IRS looks for that.
Makes many small businessmen seriously consider whether employee number 20 is worth hiring.
________________________
Hmmmmm, maybe I should consider making two companies out of my bolt and nut company, now employing 38 people. One will be Acme Bolt Company and the other Acme Nut Company, each employing 19 people. Would that work? If not I guess I could move to China, hire 100 people and still save huge labor costs. It appears there are options available out there. I do know one thing, the more my government does to make my life more miserable and complicated, the more I’m going to resist.
A lot of small businesses are hanging on by their fingernails and will not make it to the summer. This is all Obama, Pelosi and Reid. They could care less.
The Democrats will demonizee Limbaugh and the MSM will make it the lead news story.
Move to China - how criminal of you./s
These morons don’t realize why businesses move overseas - it’s not for cheap labor, it’s because it becomes far too expensive to comply with all the rules and regs.
Then contract those other jobs to temps.
Obama has this all figured out. /s
Abolish IRS, institute flat tax for individuals and small businesses, economy soars out of depression and unemployment is cut in half within 6 months.
Ah, it’s good to dream.
You set up separate companies when you hit 19.
On a related topic, I’ve been looking for stats to show the high-point of the DJIA during the Bush Administration with the number and the date it occurred. As well as the lowest point of unemployment in the previous administration. I want to make a flyer pointing out the change we got when dems voted for Obama. Dow 13,000 during Bush, Dow 6,700 with Obama, etc. Do you know of any links where I can find these stats?
US Department of Labor regs, OSHA, EPA, IRS, Workman's Comp fraud, Shyster Lawyers and friendly judges, .....
These are why companies move to Mexico, Thailand, China, .....
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