Small Business

For at least one day, Ed Munin wants his three-employee store to compete with Michaels Stores, the arts and crafts chain that dominates his industry. With the help of Gloucester County, he hopes to do that Saturday. Knowing many shoppers will flock to big retail stores such as Target and Walmart on Black Friday, county government in August mounted a 12-week campaign with the Gloucester County Chamber of Commerce, Atlantic City Electric, and PSE&G to encourage people to shop locally on Saturday in an effort to keep money in the local economy.

THIS SATURDAY CAN be a different type of shopping day. No need to worry about trying to find a parking space at a suburban mall, or being overrun by hordes of shoppers acting as if they had just stumbled onto the newest bazaar in Istanbul. Instead, because it's Small-Business Saturday, you might consider visiting a small, intimate, popup boutique, say, in Center City, where you can pick up a WeWood watch. I'm thinking of Kembrel - which has two locations, on Locust near 12th and on Chestnut near 18th - a small-biz alternative to the big-box retailers and chain stores.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission on Tuesday upgraded its online electric-shopping tool to add enhancements targeting small-business customers. The site, www.PAPowerSwitch.com , previously focused primarily on residential customers, but now includes competitive offers for small business customers. For instance, 10 suppliers have posted offers for Peco Energy Co. "general service" customers, the rate classification for small businesses. The offers include discounts up to 17 percent off Peco's default rate.

A YEAR AGO, if I'd said I was worried about "sequestration," most folks would have figured I needed a doctor and wondered if it was something they could catch. But by now, just about everyone knows it means a trillion dollars in automatic budget cuts that start in January 2013. It's part of the so-called "fiscal cliff" that was put in motion when the congressional "supercommittee" collapsed last fall - a devastating package of tax hikes and spending cuts that experts say will blow up our fragile economic recovery and drag us back into recession next year.

Taxes and uncertainty. Those words sum up one of the biggest worries facing small-business owners. With the scheduled Dec. 31 expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts, many people who run small companies don't know how much they'll be paying in taxes in 2013. And many say that's why they have put off plans to hire and expand. Compounding the uncertainty is that the outcome of the presidential and congressional elections is far from clear. President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney have different ideas about tax policy, and it's hard to say whether Congress will act to stop the cuts from taking place.

Oh, my. Here we are in 2012 and talking about the role(s) of women, equal pay and opportunities, coverage for reproductive health, and #bindersfullofwomen, though, really, that meme is the least of our problems. Let's start with some good news: The second debate was watched by 65.5 million viewers, half the number of Americans who voted in 2008, which demonstrates a pretty engaged electorate (or one that will watch if nothing else is on television). The candidates discussed issues of importance to residents of cities and suburbs, not merely the problems of small-town folks in a John Mellencamp song.

Pennsylvania small-business owners are delaying hiring plans to see who wins the fall elections, Philadelphia-based accounting firm ParenteBeard says, after surveying 70 Pennsylvania small-business bosses. Four in 10 said they're waiting for the vote before executing their current plans to add staff, John Nealon , head of the firm's small-business accounting practice, told me. (Despite persistent high unemployment, one in eight employers said it's so tough to find "qualified, talented new hires" in today's market that this has become their biggest challenge, though larger groups cited economic uncertainty, health insurance costs and weak consumer spending.)

The Tucson fringe ring clutch for sale at Fishtown's Adorn Boutique just might be a must-have. So, too, a slice of butterscotch bourbon from Magpie Artisan Pie Shop on South Street. In Point Breeze, the American Sardine Bar, successor to what was a neighborhood scourge, is now a cozy eatery. But it's possible that nobody would have known without going inside those commercial establishments - underscoring one undeniable small-business fact: Curb appeal is no less important in this world than it is in residential real estate.

  During a July campaign stop in Roanoke, Va., President Obama delivered a government's-got-your-back speech meant, it seemed, to not only attract votes, but also to console a country agonizing over plenty. "You're not on your own. We're in this together," he told his audience. But another remark Obama made riled many and sparked a national debate on small business: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. " Romney forces insisted that it was an insult to small-business owners.

President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney , have been talking up the importance of small business to the U.S. economy. But what exactly is a small business? We often hear it defined as any enterprise with fewer than 500 employees. That general cut-off is used by the federal government for contracting purposes when set-asides for small business are involved. Still, few people think a business with that many workers is small. Medium-sized, maybe. The Census Bureau counted 27.28 million U.S. firms in its 2007 economic census.