Every four years, the National Federation of Independent Business releases a survey ranking the issues and priorities facing small business owners, and while New York’s top ranking is no surprise, some issues are of more concern to New York than other states.
“We cover all the areas that small business owners deal with on a daily basis,” said Ashley Lancelot, New York state director for the National Federation of Independent Business.
Lancelot explained that these items represent 75 situations or concerns that small business owners were asked to rank: To develop the state rankings, a national sample of 40,000 NFIB members was drawn, along with a sample of 1,500 in New York state.
New York State is No. 1 in the cost of providing health insurance, and has been No. 1 since 1986, and she argued that part of that is due to the nature of health insurance.
“The smaller you are, the harder it is to offer affordable health insurance because it’s a small group market,” she said. “Health insurance goes up every year for everyone, but small business owners see the increases even bigger because they buy so much less than larger businesses.”
Eric Linzer, president and CEO of the New York Health Insurance Association, blames the high ranking on rising health care costs and a law from Albany mandating benefits.
“While these services may individually be of minimal cost, taken together they will represent a significant cost increase for small and medium-sized businesses. I believe policymakers need to consider the necessity of these proposals,” he said.
Linzer and others worry that if the state passes the New York Health Act and moves to a single-payer system, things could get worse for small business owners.
“This bill would significantly increase taxes on employers and consumers, estimated to amount to more than $250 billion,” he said.
Supporters of the New York health law disagree that it will make the problem worse, and state Sen. Gustavo Rivera says there’s evidence to the contrary.
“The coalition supporting the New York Health Act has consistently reached out to employers struggling with the high cost of health insurance. Establishing a single-payer health care system would eliminate out-of-pocket costs and administrative hassles for employers and their employers,” he said. According to a study conducted by the RAND Corporation, more than 95% of New Yorkers, including small business owners, would save money under the New York Health Act by eliminating premiums, co-payments, deductibles and other out-of-network costs.
But Lancelot argued that concerns about health insurance are common across the country and therefore not surprising. So what makes New York different from other states?
“Taxes on business outcomes rank third in the country compared to the national average of ninth,” she said.
New York also ranked higher than other states for unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation insurance, and gas and electric costs.
Lancelot said lawmakers should take note.
“Workers’ compensation is significantly higher than other parts of the country, unemployment insurance is significantly higher. These are issues that state lawmakers can address and create,” she said.
In New York, the cost of supplies and inventory, uncertainty about the state of the economy and government actions, and availability of qualified employees also ranked in the top 10.
