How small-business issues are shaping politics and policy.
In the wake of the resounding Republican victory in Tuesday’s midterm elections, there has been much talk about bipartisan changes Republicans might want to make to the Affordable Care Act. On Wednesday, The Times reported on one possibility that could affect small businesses:
“Another group of Republicans and Democrats has also called for returning the health law’s definition of full-time work to 40 hours from 30, arguing that the lower limit is forcing too many people out of work because of employers’ efforts to comply with the law. Mr. Boehner [John A. Boehner, the House speaker] singled out that measure as one that he would like to see advance.” (Another frequently suggested change would repeal a tax on medical devices.)
The bill in question is the Save American Workers Act, which would raise the threshold for full-time work — and eligibility for employer-sponsored health insurance — from 30 hours to 40 hours a week. We have discussed this bill in this space before. After a hearing in January, when testimony from the star witness — a business owner from Maine — was more symbolic than accurate, the measure moved quickly to the House floor. In early April, it passed the House.
But the legislation was only modestly bipartisan then. And it promises to be even less so should the Republicans bring it up next year, hoping to see it sail through the Republican-controlled Senate and land on President Obama’s desk.
The Save American Workers Act was sponsored by a Republican, with 220 co-sponsors, nearly all of whom were fellow Republicans. Only seven co-sponsors were Democrats, and just three of them will return to the House in January. Two were defeated on Tuesday. Two more retired under siege, and their seats will also turn over in January.
When the bill came up for a vote in April, 11 more Democrats joined the seven Democratic co-sponsors and nearly the entire Republican caucus to give their assent. Two of these Democrats lost their bids for re-election outright; four more are trailing their Republican challengers in elections that were not settled as of Wednesday night. Another was leading in a close, as yet uncalled race.
In all, of the 18 Democrats who voted for the Save American Workers Act, it’s possible that as few as seven would be in a position to vote for it again next year.
This is the second in our video series on Women in Tech. You can see the first video here.
In San Francisco, Melody McCloskey stands out as a rare woman in the land of tech start-ups. She has raised some $14 million in venture capital for StyleSeat, an online booking platform for salon professionals that she founded in 2011 along with Dan Levine, a developer. Today, some 260,000 stylists use the platform, and the company employs 31 people.
But Ms. McCloskey’s career in tech was nearly derailed in 2002, back when she was a high school student in suburban San Francisco and she took an advanced placement course in computer science, something of an introduction to coding. “I have always loved computers and I’ve always loved tech,” she said. “I was really excited about it.”
Ms. McCloskey, who studied ballet until growing too tall, brought a dancer’s discipline to her studies. “The coursework wasn’t harder than any of my other A.P. courses,” she said. “But I was the only woman in the class.” And right away, she said, “there was all this tension and attention present because of that. All the guys either wanted to talk to me or didn’t want me to be there.” Read more…
When I first wrote about Fran Free in 2010, she was whipping up organic baby food in a leased kitchen and trying to lower her production costs. Her products were sustainable, but her business, Oh Baby Foods, was not.
“It was a struggle back then,” she said. Ms. Free – then known as Fran Gunsaulis – faced a classic start-up dilemma: She needed to ramp up production to realize the economies of scale that would reduce her costs, but she lacked the large contracts that would allow her to raise the capital required to manufacture more of her product.
The company, founded in 2009 and based in Fayetteville, Ark., did not become profitable until this year. In 2013, annual sales were $200,000. But now, because of packaging changes and rapid expansion, Oh Baby is on track to hit $1 million in 2014 sales. The company, which has three full-time employees, four part-time employees and 40 field representatives, will soon hire more staff. Read more…
Richard Thomas got the idea to open a health food restaurant after traveling around California, where he sampled the menus of the kinds of places that were not easily found in the South in the 1980s. Later, he was further motivated when he met a nutritional consultant, Donna Gates, author of “The Body Ecology Diet,” who told him that he had been poisoning people with his fried food.
Mr. Thomas opened R. Thomas Deluxe Grill in 1985 with 48 seats, investing $528,000 and then waiting patiently for residents of Atlanta to expand their palates. He turned a small profit five years out, but only really started to make money in 1995. Today, his place has 94 seats, employs 42, is swamped on weekends — especially from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. — and generates $4 million a year in revenue.
In a recent interview, Mr. Thomas, who will turn 80 in December, talked about why he continues to manage the restaurant. Please read the interview and tell us what you think it takes to shift established tastes.
An old-line business tries to compete in a high-tech economy.
Once again, we have decisions to make. I have given my latest problem a lot of thought — the problem of losing money because we don’t really have enough work for about three people.
But despite giving it a lot of thought, I still don’t have a solution. I’m stalling. And I’m losing more money every day.
I just got off the phone with my consultant, Kelly Allan, and he has given me more to think about regarding a layoff. You’ll notice I used the word “layoff” instead of “right-sizing,” which is what I was calling it until we had the following conversation. Read more…
How small-business issues are shaping politics and policy.
In an article The Times has just published, Reed Abelson surveys how small businesses are reacting to the Affordable Care Act. She found that some businesses are dropping coverage, and most are avoiding the government-run health insurance exchanges set up for small businesses. But Ms. Abelson encountered one insurance company that hoped to do a brisk business in the small-group market next year.
Health Care Service Corporation is introducing a private insurance exchange for businesses with up to 50 employees. It is known as Blue Directions for Small Business and will be available for 2015 in the five states where the company offers Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance: Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
Private exchanges have grown increasingly popular with business owners because they’re typically structured as a defined-contribution plan, rather than a defined-benefit plan. In a defined-contribution plan, a company specifies how much it will pay for insurance, and employees can use that money to choose among several health plans, paying more out of their own pockets if they choose more expensive options. Some see it as a way to help businesses insulate themselves from sharp increases in health care costs. Read more…
This is part two of a series on commissioning a new website. You can read the first post here.
When I was a young man in the 1980s, trying to find a vendor was an ordeal. I had to leaf through phone books, which didn’t list wholesale suppliers. I had to make phone calls and talk to people. I had to wait for brochures to arrive in the mail or spend time with salespeople who showed up unannounced at my door. You guys today, with your Google, don’t know how easy you have it.
Today, the problem isn’t finding potential vendors, it’s weeding out the ones you don’t want. As I explained in my previous post, my plan to find a web designer who knew something about search engine optimization was to do a search for “Philadelphia web design” and choose from the listings that showed up on the first page of the results. I just ran that search again and found 28 companies listed. Ten were paid links. When I ran the same search in September 2013, I decided to ignore the paid links because I wanted to find someone who was doing a good job managing their own organic results.
And then I started clicking. I ended up going through three pages of results, looking at maybe 50 companies. I rejected most of what I saw, for these reasons: Read more…
