To follow up on this morning's ADP release, here are some more details as to why this time (yet again) is different (i.e. worse).
Unlike during the 2001 recession when small business employment "hung in there" with less of a downturn than mid and larger firms (my guess is this was due to those individuals being laid off from larger firms, starting their own smaller firms) and led the recovery, small businesses have shed almost as many jobs as mid-sized firms and almost double large size firms.
Which is why it is nice to FINALLY see legislation targeting this area. Per the NY Times:
Senate Democratic leaders introduced their long-awaited small-business jobs bill on Tuesday — and in an indication of how urgently legislators viewed the matter, the Senate voted to begin debating the measure even before its details were finalized.
The bill, crafted jointly by the Senate’s finance and small-business committees, makes many temporary, and some permanent, changes to popular Small Business Administration programs that provide government guarantees for loans to small firms, including higher loan limits and higher guarantees.