A new poll released yesterday shows small business owners continue to be concerned about the country's economic recovery.

Democrats are fighting for American workers, their families and small businesses and we will continue to work to grow our economy and create jobs. What is clear is that Republicans are continuing to obstruct progress and seek to take us back to the failed economic policies of the Bush Administration.

Here are the facts about the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act passed by House Democrats:

Estimated Job Impact: 450,000-500,000 new American jobs

Passed the House: June 17, 2010

Opposed by House Republicans: 98% voted NO

A similar bill has been blocked by Senate Republicans for months.

Yesterday, the nonpartisan RAND Corporation published a new report, revealing that an additional 10 million workers at small businesses will have access to affordable health insurance, as a result of the Affordable Care Act. The report shows that, once the Health Insurance Exchanges are functioning, the proportion of workers in businesses with 50 or fewer employees with the option of purchasing affordable health insurance at work will increase from 60.4 percent to 85.9 percent. Small businesses employ most Americans. From the Los Angeles Times:

…An economist and two health policy researchers at the nonprofit Rand Corp. conducted a simulation  to predict what is likely to happen once employers are able to offer coverage through these exchanges. Overall, they estimate that the proportion of U.S. workers who will have access to health insurance through their jobs will jump from 84.6% to 94.6%. That works out to 13.6 million additional workers having the option to buy affordable health plans.

Most of that bump is likely to come from smaller businesses with 50 or fewer employees. Today, only 60.4% of these employees can get health insurance through their jobs. Once the exchanges are functioning, the Rand researchers forecast that 85.9% of small business employees will have the option of buying health plans at work – an increase of 10.5 million workers.

Part of the reason for that growth is that the policies that will be offered through the exchanges will be less expensive, the researchers said. Small companies will be able to band together to pool their risk, which will give them more leverage to bargain with insurance companies. It also means their premiums should be more stable from year to year…

And this morning, the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund found that:

Relief for small businesses was greatly needed, as most of the erosion in employer health coverage over the last decade has taken place in small firms.  Currently, 52 percent of workers in firms with fewer than 50 employees are uninsured or underinsured.

Millions of small businesses will benefit from the new small business tax credits included in the Affordable Care Act to help them afford health insurance for their workers, which became effective in January 2010.

16.6 million workers are estimated to be currently working in the small businesses that are eligible for these new small business tax credits.

Democrats in Congress and President Obama enacted landmark health insurance reforms to make health coverage more affordable for small businesses and families, and protect young adults, the middle class, women, and seniors.  Despite the clear benefits of health insurance reform – Republican leaders are standing with insurance companies and want to repeal the Patient's Bill of Rights which protects Americans from discrimination when they need it most – when they get sick or have a pre-existing condition.

Congressional Democrats continue to support legislation to provide tax cuts for the middle-class, create good-paying American jobs, and reduce the deficit – while Republicans threaten to take Americans back to the "exact same" failed agenda of the Bush Administration. While clearly more needs to be done, including Senate Republicans dropping their blockade of the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act, which provides tax relief for small businesses and enables small businesses to have more access to loans, an article in today's Washington Post outlines five reasons "that a slow-and-steady [economic] recovery is likely to continue." From the Washington Post:

Is there any reason for hope in this gloomy summer for the economy? A certain fatalism – that a double-dip recession is inevitable – has crept into a lot of economic analysis lately, but it may be overstating the degree to which we are in dire straits. A roaring recovery is probably not on the way, but here are five reasons that a slow-and-steady recovery is likely to continue.

Savings
The savings rate rose from 2.7 percent at the start of the recession, in the beginning of 2008, to 5.9 percent in July. That means households are farther along in readjusting their spending patterns to match their incomes than was previously realized. That should make them freer to spend more in the months ahead.

Credit
Gradual healing is underway in the financial sector, making loans more available for households and businesses. The most recent edition of the Federal Reserve’s senior loan officers survey showed that more banks have eased lending standards for corporate loans. For companies with access to global capital markets, interest rates remain quite low, which supports growth.

Manufacturing
The industrial sector is actually holding up. July industrial production was up 1 percent, and early indicators show that the expansion continued last month. The Institute for Supply Management said Wednesday that its index of activity in the manufacturing sector rose in August, to 56.3 from 55.5 (numbers above 50 indicate expansion). It appears that manufacturers view final demand for their products as steady enough to keep producing.

Housing
No one is expecting home-building activity to return to pre-crisis levels for a very long time. But in July, builders began building new housing units at a paltry annual rate of 546,000, less than half of what’s needed to keep up with population growth. The housing market just can’t contract that much more. When housing starts fell from a 2.3 million annual rate in early 2006 to the low of 477,000 in April 2009, it was a major drain on the economy, but a decline of that scale is now mathematically impossible.

Trade
A steep rise in imports dragged down the economy in the second quarter to an unprecedented degree. If the trade deficit had not widened, the gross domestic product would have grown at a healthy 5 percent annual rate. With many other world economies doing better than the U.S. economy right now, exports may be set to rise more than imports in the coming quarters, which would help domestic growth.