From an early January post from SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet: “Last week’s jobs report offered more evidence that our economy is gathering a head of steam as we ring in the New Year. Last month, American businesses added back 252,000 jobs and our unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since June 2008. We’re in the midst of 58 month of consecutive job growth – the longest streak on record since the mid-1990s.
Read the article here.
~ Norris Lozano, CEO of BusinessUS
The media is hungry for clues about the direction of the American economy. And as we know, small business is a key engine of this economy, providing 55% of all jobs and 66% of all net new jobs since the 1970’s, as well as 54% of all US sales.
Here are a few positive snippets from recent news:
U.S. small business optimism jumped in December to its highest level in more than eight years, the latest sign of strength in the economy even as dark clouds settle over global growth….The outlook was further bolstered by other data on Tuesday showing job openings approached a 14-year high in November.
The number of purchases and sales of small businesses, at an all-time high in 2013, grew even more during 2014…Participating business brokers reported 7,494 closed transactions in 2014, an increase of over 6 percent from the 7,056 transactions in 2013.
But perhaps these headlines grabbed you:
So 2014, on the whole, seems to have been a good year for small businesses seeking capital from banks to grow…..But if you look at the numbers another way, you’d see that this increase is only telling part of the story. It’s a story of success mainly for small businesses seeking big money from big banks.
U.S. small-business lending never quite regained the ground lost during the Great Recession, ceding significant market share to larger firms that have benefited from a gradual but lengthy economic recovery, research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland finds.
Seems to be a mixed bag… so here’s some clarity. Big banks are stepping up to the plate for small business after almost 6 years of kicking them to the curb. But only in larger amounts. No surprise here: big banks make big loans to make big profits.
Where small business lending is growing is sub $150,000 loans, which many new online lenders are happy to provide – at massively high rates.
What’s still missing in the picture is the traditional meat-and-potatoes of the small business lending picture: community banks lending to small businesses in their communities.
Says Carly Fiorina in Inc. Magazine: “Unlocking capital is very important, and of course since the financial crisis, the surviving big banks have gotten bigger, but the community banking system is really struggling, and that means small businesses are struggling. It is community banks that provide most of the capital to small business, and [we need to] start unlocking small business loans again. We have got to get capital to them so they can form and thrive.”
If you want to learn more about small business loans, contact BusinessUS
“Small employers added 106,000 workers to their collective payrolls in December, according to the latest round of data issued by payroll processing firm ADP. That’s up from 99,000 added the month before and the fourth consecutive month of employment growth exceeding 90,000.
Over the year, small businesses added more than 1 million employees, averaging monthly additions of 90,000 workers — up from last year’s pace of about 80,000 per month.”
Read more here in the Washington Post
~ want to learn more about small business loans? email Norris Lozano or visit the BusinessUS website
We are asked all the time “What defines a small business?” and “Why does it matter?”
Many would answer that small businesses are anchors of a community, creating jobs and opportunity in cities and towns across America.
According to the SBA, “The two most widely used standards to qualify a business as small are 500 employees for most manufacturing and mining industries and $7.5 million in average annual receipts for many non-manufacturing industries.”
And to the second question, only a qualifying small business is able to provide certain services to the SBA, and qualifies for certain financing programs from the SBA. These include SBA 7(a) loans, the most common and popular small business loans which are provided by traditional bank, community bank and non-bank lenders, and up to 85% of which are guaranteed by the SBA.
Learn more about SBA loan programs here.
Al Gore is back with an even stronger message on climate change and a low-carbon economy necessity. His article in Rolling Stone is detailed, stark, and ultimatelty, optimistic:
“Is there enough time? Yes. Damage has been done, and the period of consequences will continue for some time to come, but there is still time to avoid the catastrophes that most threaten our future. Each of the trends described above – in technology, business, economics and politics – represents a break from the past. Taken together, they add up to genuine and realistic hope that we are finally putting ourselves on a path to solve the climate crisis.”
~ Norris Lozano, CEO of BusinessUS
PRESS RELEASE: “We are extremely fortunate to have a programmer of Chris Serra’s stature join our technology team,” says Norris Lozano, CEO of BusinessUS. “Chris’ deep knowledge and 16 years’ experience in solving complex technology issues will help us develop the best-in-class technology platform we need to compete.”
Read the full release here
After 6 long years (or 7, depending on when you place the start-date of the Recession), the US economy has finally “the United States has finally recovered all the jobs lost during the Great Recession”
Here’s the painful graph, and a description
The BusinessUS Corporate Blog; Norris Lozano, CEO 
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