When Obama says "small businesses" how many employees

[soccermomforobama]

is he talking about?

[Kittycat]

1. Small businesses are defined by revenue.

[Leopolds Ghost]

4. I must admit, I'm tired of hearing about the "middle class"

Many of them are selfish bourgieois "uncommitted" nincompoops.

Obama should be talking about the poor, AND the small proprietors.

And tradesmen like Joe the Plumber. Licensed or not. I've been there.

Small proprietors are people who recieve below middle class wages,
but have above middle class assets. It costs $250,000 EASY to own
a restaurant or bookstore with 10 employees. That is a small business.
If the business fails, they can easily become poor. Unlike the "middle"
class, many small tradespeople know what it is to live out of a car
instead of on credit. I've been unlucky enough to be stuck in the
credit side of the equation and it sickens me to see how the middle
class in this country have embraced credit cards as a rite of passage
(along with drivers license as a form of citizenship papers.)

I'm a member of a co-op that is totally non-profit in
the way it is run, and they have to raise $250,000 to cover
our capital funding drive in order to survive this recession.

[FrenchieCat]

10. The middle class ARE the poor.....

Candidates don't win running to help the poor, because most of the poor don't know that is what they are.

In fact, poor people "think" they are middle class, although when they open up their bank book, they know that if they lose their job, they are at the most a 90 days from being thrown into the streets.

[malta blue]

13. 90 days?

If I lost my job, I would have nothing to feed my kid with within a week. :cry:

[LiberalFighter]

14. According to SBA it depends on the industry and it is either receipts or employees.

Table of Small Business Size Standards

It appears the numbers they use do not make any appropriate sense.

1,500 for Petroleum Refineries is considered a small business.

1,000 for Automobile Manufacturing
1,500 for Aircraft Manufacturing


Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting is based mainly on receipts starting at $750,000.
Only logging uses an employee definition (500).

Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction is based mainly on employees which they use 500 as the cut-off.
Support Activities for Mining Operations uses $7,000,000 as their receipts cut-off.

[napi21]

2. Most of the time, sall businesses are defined as having less than 50 employees.

It's doubtful that it's determined by profits, or GM would be donsidered a small business!

[FrenchieCat]

5. It is by the gross, not the net.

Small business is a business that is independently owned and operated, with a small number of employees and relatively low volume of sales. The legal definition of "small" often varies by country and industry, but is generally under 100 employees in the United States.

In addition to number of employees, other methods used to classify small companies include annual sales (turnover), value of assets and net profit (balance sheet), alone or in a mixed definition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_business

[depakid]

6. For some purposes, the number can also be under 50 in the states

[FrenchieCat]

8. Aye......

[Leopolds Ghost]

7. Which is insane. 100 people is a mid-size private corporation, not a small business.

30 people I could see as the cut-off.

[LiberalFighter]

11. It all depends on the legislation.

[LiberalFighter]

12. Here is a breakdown of employment size for 2004

2,777,680XX, 1-4 employees
1,043,448XX, 5-9 employees
X,632,682XX, 10-19 employees
X,526,355XX, 20-99 employees
XX,86,538XX, 100-499 employees
XX,17,047XX, 500 employees or more


4,980,165 firms with less than 100 employees
= 97.96% of all firms

5,083,750 all firms

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

16. It's revenues and operating budgets, not profits (nt)

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. I would say it is any business that can not afford to provide some

type of group policy insurance. We can NOT let them get away with this! Medical Coverage For All

[mickeymusic]

9. It's not in the numbers, but rather $ earned.

It's not in the number of employees, but rather in the bottom line dollars profit. If a business owner personally profits more than $250K then the tax kicks in. That is what Obama's program is all about.

[SmileyRose]

15. FEDERAL PERSONAL INCOME TAXES - not business taxes.

This whole discussion of how it will ream small businesses is bullshit. The tax isn't on the business it PERSONAL INCOME TAXES. Any business owner making over $250,000 is going to be incorporated. Meaning they will be a paid employee of their own corporation. A business owner who can't afford to incorporate is not going to be earning anywhere near 250 grand in personal income.

The small business mantra is a Republican ruse, and I wish Obama would call attention to that fact. Only 2% of America's privately held business owners, of any size, have personal income over $250,000.