The Top 10 Cities Where Small-Biz Jobs Are Growing
Small businesses have been hiring, though at a slower rate than this time last year, according to the Paychex|IHS job index.
For the 11th month in a row, Dallas’s small businesses have shown the most employment gains. The city boasts the top 12-month growth rate at 1.38 percent. Detroit (1.35 percent), San Diego (1.27 percent), Baltimore and St. Louis (both 1.13 percent) round out the top five. Houston’s recent performance is also impressive, with a rebound in growth rates over the past three months compared with declines during the rest of the year.
Related: This Is the Best Time Since the Recession to Get a Small Business Loan
Only five states saw positive gains in employment rates over the past year, and none of them increased by a full statistical point. One notable state is Michigan, which ranks second behind Wisconsin, as the state with the highest employment gains in small businesses since 2004. It also came in second for highest gains in the past year.
The index numbers used by Paychex for cities and states is based on the current small business employment rate as compared with 2004. Paychex uses 2004 as the base period to compare current gains against because it was a year of expansion for small businesses. Below 100, and the rate is lower than in 2004. Above 100, and the rate is higher than in 2004.
The charts below rank the cities and states based on their index levels.
Top Reads from The Fiscal Times
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GOP Tax Cuts Getting Less Popular, Poll Finds
Friday marked the six-month anniversary of President Trump’s signing the Republican tax overhaul into law, and public opinion of the law is moving in the wrong direction for the GOP. A Monmouth University survey conducted earlier this month found that 34 percent of the public approves of the tax reform passed by Republicans late last year, while 41 percent disapprove. Approval has fallen by 6 points since late April and disapproval has slipped 3 points. The percentage of people who aren’t sure how they feel about the plan has risen from 16 percent in April to 24 percent this month.
Other findings from the poll of 806 U.S. adults:
- 19 percent approve of the job Congress is doing; 67 percent disapprove
- 40 percent say the country is heading in the right direction, up from 33 percent in April
- Democrats hold a 7-point edge in a generic House ballot
Special Tax Break Zones Defined for All 50 States
The U.S. Treasury has approved the final group of opportunity zones, which offer tax incentives for investments made in low-income areas. The zones were created by the tax law signed in December.
Bill Lucia of Route Fifty has some details: “Treasury says that nearly 35 million people live in the designated zones and that census tracts in the zones have an average poverty rate of about 32 percent based on figures from 2011 to 2015, compared to a rate of 17 percent for the average U.S. census tract.”
Click here to explore the dynamic map of the zones on the U.S. Treasury website.
Map of the Day: Affordable Care Act Premiums Since 2014
Axios breaks down how monthly premiums on benchmark Affordable Care Act policies have risen state by state since 2014. The average increase: $481.
Obamacare Repeal Would Lead to 17.1 Million More Uninsured in 2019: Study
A new analysis by the Urban Institute finds that if the Affordable Care Act were eliminated entirely, the number of uninsured would rise by 17.1 million — or 50 percent — in 2019. The study also found that federal spending would be reduced by almost $147 billion next year if the ACA were fully repealed.
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Mick Mulvaney has been running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since last November, and by all accounts the South Carolina conservative is none too happy with the agency charged with protecting citizens from fraud in the financial industry. The Hill recently wrote up “five ways Mulvaney is cracking down on his own agency,” and they include dropping cases against payday lenders, dismissing three advisory boards and an effort to rebrand the operation as the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection — a move critics say is intended to deemphasize the consumer part of the agency’s mission.
Mulvaney recently scored a small victory on the last point, changing the sign in the agency’s building to the new initials. “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does not exist,” Mulvaney told Congress in April, and now he’s proven the point, at least when it comes to the sign in his lobby (h/t to Vox and thanks to Alan Zibel of Public Citizen for the photo, via Twitter).
