Posted on 09/20/2012 8:20:21 AM PDT by TurboZamboni
They're simply holding on waiting to see which way to go...stay where they are or increase staff in expectation of an improving economy (a Romney victory) or hold or reduce staffing to reduce exposure to the burden (an Obama win).
Just using rough numbers, there are about 540,000 small businesses in the US with fewer than 100 employees. If you assume half of them have 50-100 employees that means there are about 270,000 businesses that have exposure to ObamaCare that their business models...in most cases...cannot bear. If you assume that the average of those businesses with between 50 and 100 employees has “75,” you'd end up with about 6.75 Million American wage-earners who are vulnerable to being cut so employers can get their companies below that ObamaCare 50-employee threshold.
I understand that these numbers are very rough, because I'm just figuring “averages” to come up with that number of businesses and employees. But I think it's more than reasonable to assume that this estimate has at least some numerical validity. Let's say my estimate is off by 25%. That means that there are still over 5,000,000 employees who are extremely vulnerable.
If you're a business owner with 75 employees, and your little company turns a profit that puts $400,000 a year in your pocket, consider this:
The $3,000 per employee ObamaCare penalty will cost your “bottom line” a whopping $225,000 in the coming year. That means that assuming you don't have to spend anything on lawyers and accountants to deal with the IRS audits that will hit you to see if you comply with the ObamaCare coverage requirements, your income will drop by over 50%, to just $175,000.
Doesn't sound all that bad? Remember, if you pay the current highest rate of income taxes January 1st also hammers you with a rate increase that will see you paying about 11% more in taxes than you did last year...nearly 40% for a rate. That will drop you (assuming zero deductions) to just over $100,000.
So, how do you protect yourself? You slash the worst 26 employees on your payroll and get yourself to a staff of 49, taking you out of “ObamaCare” vulnerability. Let's pretend that by slashing your 26 least-productive employees..or reducing your staff by about 1/3rd, you retain 2/3ds of your projection. That takes ObamaCare completely out of the equation. So...assuming your end of year income is proportionally impacted by that 1/3 cut in employees, you end up with $270,000 in income that you pay that higher tax rate on, and end up with an after-tax income of nearly $200,000.
Again, I understand these numbers are “rough.” However, I also know that if I cut the worst 1/3 of my staff I wouldn't lose 1/3rd of my productivity.
There are tens of thousands of small business owners sitting in wait right now pondering that exact decision. And if Obama is reelected or they see that ObamaCare won't be eliminated before the end of the year, a big number of them are going to begin issuing a massive wave of “pink slips” unlike anything any of us have seen in our lifetimes.
So...have we “bottomed out”? Hell no!
If you are in a position to do so, buy now. Either a Romney-Ryan win will start the economy on the way to recovery, or an Obama win will ensure a complete collapse, in which everyone will be devastated (except government employees, until we start tracking them down).
Using census data to determine the health of our economy is ridiculous, yet creative.
Also, if the census results are relevant, how in the heck would the DATED data be good news for todays reality? Ridiculous.
I am so sick of the daily deception and complete break from reality..... lies, lies and more damn lies.
The Economy has "bottomed out" for over three years now.
Rush discussing this story now
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