Today, Mr. Wendell Fant, Deputy District Director, for United States Congressman Larry Kissell (8th District, North Carolina) visited our group to share information about doing business with the government, and the overall US employment picture. While some people are returning to work and consumer spending is up .50% straight for the last four months, it is Mr. Fant’s opinion (and the opinion of others, as well) that jobs will not be returning to the level they once were.
Mr. Fant said that the United States House of Representatives passed HR 2847, the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act. This bill is designed to help create jobs by cutting payroll taxes for businesses and investing in new surface transportation projects. H.R. 2847 contains legislation to increase tax deductions for small business expensing. Because the bill was modified, it must return to the Senate for another vote. This is expected to take place next week.
I located information about the four key provisions included in the HIRE Act:
- New Jobs Payroll Tax Exemption: offers an employer exemption from Social Security payroll taxes for every worker hired after February 3, 2010 and before January 1, 2011 that had previously been unemployed for at least 60 days. It also allows an additional $1,000 income tax credit for every new employee retained for 52 weeks to be taken on the employer’s income tax return.
- Section 179 Expensing: helps small businesses grow by allowing them to write off more of the cost of their 2010 expenditures in lieu of recovering those costs over time through depreciation.
- Highway Trust Fund Extension: extends existing highway programs which provide states and localities with the certainty they need to make decisions on projects. It allows for billions more to be invested in infrastructure throughout the nation and saves one million jobs.
- Expanding Build America Bonds: allows state and local governments to borrow at lower costs to finance more infrastructure projects and put people to work.
Even if a job seeker isn’t specifically looking for work in highways or infrastructure, Mr. Fant believes that these incentives will spur growth other areas of the economy as well.
Small Business Administration:
Mr. Fant addressed small businesses pursuing government contracts. The Small Business Administration (http://www.sba.gov/) has tremendous resources for small businesses, including information on preparing a business plan – which would be necessary for a government contract. The Charlotte, NC District Office of the SBA (http://www.sba.gov/localresources/district/nc/index.html) office is located at 6302 Fairview Road, Suite 300, Charlotte, NC 28210-2227 (704-344-6563 Phone).
SCORE:
SCORE (the Resource Partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration) is also located in the same building. SCORE is a national association dedicated to helping small business owners form and grow their businesses. The local website is: http://www.charlottescore.org/. Mr. Fant’s Charlotte, NC contact at SCORE is Mr. Chuck Sawicki (704-344-6576).
Matchforce.org:
Mr. Fant discussed matchforce.org (http://matchforce.org/). According to the website “MatchForce matches North Carolina businesses to government contracts, government purchasers to NC suppliers, and job seekers to NC jobs. Businesses, contracting officers, cardholders and job seekers can register, post, search and receive opportunities – and get results – TODAY!”.
Small Business Technology
The Small Business Technology Center http://www.sbtdc.org/ “has been helping North Carolina businesses grow and create new jobs since 1984. SBTDC specialists provide management counseling and educational services to small and mid-sized businesses throughout North Carolina.” The local SBTDC office is located at UNC Charlotte, 8701 Mallard Creek Road, The Ben Craig Center, Charlotte, NC 28262-9705 (phone – 704.548.1090). Mr. Fant noted his local contact is George McAllister, Regional Director (704-548-1000).
Local Information:
Some local resources were shared and discussed by other members as well. I’ll cover this next time.
By the way, if you are interested in obtaining more information about the group, you can contact me at jliebel@vnet.net. I started this group about a year ago (through meetup.com) in response to growing unemployment in the Charlotte/Cabarrus County area. We now use LinkedIn and email for our communications. Attendance and the frequency of meetings have increased way beyond my initial dream. I continue to coordinate and facilitate the free weekly two hour group meetings (with volunteer assistance from group members). We received no outside funding. I’d like to add that donations are always appreciated. : )
It’s a lively friendly meeting where we share individual “wins”, resources, and support one another. We also share one meeting a month with the Cabarrus Regional Chamber’s Jobs One group. I’ll share more information next time about these local support resources as well.
I want to thanks Mr. Fant for sharing his time and resources with the group. I also want to thank him for being open to listening to the concerns of some of the local job seekers.
Categories: 
Tags: 
