The 7(a) program backed $37.3 billion in small business loans last year on a promise: run it at zero subsidy, and the taxpayer never pays. A House bill introduced this week is really a demand to see whether that promise still holds.
Cash flow, suppliers, regulation and fraud — for the people who run the place themselves.
NFIB's own June survey has the Optimism Index climbing to 97.4. Buried in the same report: inflation complaints at a 21-month high, and price hikes running at their fastest pace since January 2023.
Both of those numbers are in the same Census release, two lines apart. The first one gets the headline. The second one is the one that tells you what kind of economy this is.
The FTC mailed seven more "Made in the USA" warning letters on July 6. The letters aren't fines, and they say so in writing. That's not the same as saying they're harmless.
Caroline Dai left a finance career to sell a tofu snack. Two weeks after launch, it went viral. What happened next is a real small-business story — with one honest asterisk on the numbers.
Everyone tells small business owners to buy domestic. Almost nobody tells them how, or admits what it costs. Here's the honest version.
The exploit that seized Instagram accounts at the end of May didn't break anything. It just asked politely. And it failed against every account that had two-factor switched on.
NFIB's June survey found more Main Street owners trying to fill jobs than in May. Fewer of them raised pay to do it. Normally those two lines move together.
The Forever Stamp went to 82 cents this week. Postmaster General David Steiner told Congress in June that the agency is out of cash and borrowing from its own employees' retirement fund. Those two facts sit on the same page. If you still mail a check, so do you.
A tenant screening company will pay $2.25 million after the FTC said its reports counted the same court record over and over. In one case, two records showed up as fifteen.
Four out of five small firms don't use artificial intelligence. That hasn't spared them the bill.
Independent shops get the same tools the dealers have. Farmers get no money, Deere admits nothing, and a judge hasn't signed it yet.
