JOBS

As President Barack Obama travels the country selling his American Jobs Act and the U.S. Congress works to meet a pending deadline on our national debt challenges, the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) today released its new small business Startup Kit.

Glaringly absent from the jobs debate has been specific proposals that speak to how to encourage and support startups and the self-employed, our nation’s biggest job creators. The National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) has introduced a National Self- Employment Initiative to get the conversation started.

Official Washington returns to work this week, and any lawmakers who were hoping the economy would shape up in their absence are sorely out of luck.

As Congressional leaders race to address the debt-ceiling limit deadline, Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi signaled his support for extending the payroll tax break to both employees and employers to help boost the economy in light of Friday’s disappointing unemployment report.

While Congress and the Obama Administration are hoping that small businesses will continue to be the engine of job creation and spur recovery, the sluggish economy has had a negative impact on the operations and hiring plans of many small businesses. Over sixty percent of self-employed and micro-business owners indicate that their business has experienced a significant decrease in sales and/or revenue, and almost fifty percent say they have had to utilize their personal savings or retirement savings to address cash flow issues, according to a study undertaken by the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE).