The reforms make us break out in hives because nobody really understands it, so our janitorial service company is holding back on expenses more than ever.
Politicians are talking about the need to spend money and get the economy going. But we're afraid to spend because we don't know what the big, scary monster around the corner looks like.
We care deeply for our employees, so we provide English classes and a support program for them to plan and attain their goals.
We had plans to take an office adjacent to ours and convert it into a community conference center for the program, but instead we're now holding back the money and building a reserve. The area's just a storage room now. The biggest factor in our decision is uncertainty of the future, and health care is a big part of that.
We keep hiring, though. As we get cleaning contracts, we staff to service them. But the employee mandate will affect us because less than 20% of our 290 laborers are willing to pay into our current $20-a-payday insurance program. And my customers don't have a lot of money to pay me extra if I need to cover my employees.
We asked 10 small businesspeople the one thing they'd ask President Obama to do to make it easier for them to hire.
