Despite President Obama’s claims to have issued fewer rules than his predecessor George W. Bush (remember him?), a new report suggests otherwise. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs’ semiannual regulatory publication, Unified Agendas, it found that small-business regulations have increased 12 percent in 2012 from 2011: 854 new rules were approved last year.
So what does this mean? It’s not nearly as bad as it might sound: Small-business law blog Free Enterprise has discerned that “many of the regulations are aimed at leveling the playing field for workers.”
If you haven’t been paying attention, here’s a handful of the rules that were affected by these new regulations:
- The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
- Social Security
- The Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA)
- The Equal Pay Act
- The Immigration Reform Act
- The Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA)
- The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA)
- The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA)
- The Age Discrimination Act
- The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
Obviously you’ll want to do more research on your end to look into these and how it affects you — don’t forget there are resources around that offer free advice for startups, like MeetAdvisors.
David Wolinsky is a freelance writer and a lifelong Chicagoan. In addition to currently serving as an interviewer-writer for Adult Swim, he's also a comedy-writing instructor for Second City. He was the Chicago city editor for The Onion A.V. Club where he provided in-depth daily coverage of this city's bustling arts/entertainment scene for half a decade. His first career aspirations were to be a game-show host.
