New data from payroll companies suggests that small businesses are slowly beginning to add employees, even as the most recent Labor Department report shows the unemployment rate held steady at just under 10 percent. Some economists believe these numbers indicate the recession is bottoming out.

Based on data gathered from Intuit’s online payroll service, companies with less than 20 employees have added jobs since June 2009, said Business Week Additionally, data from SurePayroll shows the average paycheck for workers at businesses with fewer than 100 employees has stabilized, said Business Week.

President Obama has put forth a number of measures intended to get people back to work, including tax incentives for businesses that hire new employees and pushing banks to free up more credit for small businesses.

John Bishop, a labor economist at Cornell University, told Business Week that temporary incentives like tax credits could create more than 2 million jobs in a year.
“It potentially has a huge effect, and small business would be the primary beneficiary of that,” Bishop told Business Week.

New consumer-friendly credit card regulations take effect today, after widespread complaints about unfair industry practices. President Obama signed a bill last May that restricts certain credit card fees, reforms billing practices and requires companies to give customers more notice on changes in interest rates or terms of their accounts. Customers will have the right to cancel their accounts if they don’t agree with the new terms.

USA Today breaks down what the new rules mean for customers.

Interest Rates:

New: Credit card companies can no longer raise interest rates retroactively on existing balances. In addition, if you open a new credit card account, the issuer can’t raise the interest rate for 12 months.

What Hasn’t Changes: The legislation imposes no limits on the rates credit card issuers can charge new customers. Nor does it limit how much card issuers can raise rates on future purchases, said USA Today.

Fees:

New: Credit card companies can no longer to charge a fee when you exceed your credit limit.

What Hasn’t Changes: Companies will still be allowed to charge annual fees, inactivity fees and other types of fees. Many experts agree companies will increase those fees.

Billing Practices:

New: Consumers often have different interest rates for new purchases, transfer balances and cash advances on the same credit card. Companies usually apply full payments to the lowest interest rate. Under the new regulations, they must apply payments over the minimum to the highest interest balances.

Also, customers must receive their bills at least 21 days before payment is due, and payment due dates must be the same every month. Banks can no longer use a customer’s average daily balance over two months to calculate interest, a practice known as “double-cycle billing,” said USA Today.

What Hasn’t Changed: If a customer only makes the minimum payment, the company can still apply that amount to the lowest-interest rate balance.

Disclosures and Notices:

New: Companies must give customers 45 days’ notice before raising interest rates, changing certain fees, such as annual fees or cash advance fees, or making other significant account changes. Card issuers also have to provide customers with more information about their accounts, such as how much you’d have to pay monthly to eliminate your balance in three years.

What Hasn’t Changed: Companies can close your account or lower your credit limit for any reason without giving advance notice.

Small businesses are the “places where most new jobs begin,” President Obama said in his weekly radio address Saturday, a day after announcing new measures to create jobs.

Obama has proposed tax incentives and credits, expanded government loan programs and aid to community banks that he said will help small businesses hire new employees, reported Bloomberg News.

The president’s plan would eliminate capital gains taxes on small businesses in 2010 and give small businesses a $5,000 tax credit for every new job created. In addition, $30 billion from repaid bank bailout money would be distributed to community banks to spur small business lending, said the Associated Press.

The plan would also temporarily increase the cap on Small Business Administration loans from $350,000 to $1 million and expand the SBA program to help refinance commercial real-estate loans, said the AP. All of the proposals would need to be approved by Congress.

The unemployment rate has finally dipped just below 10 percent, but with the public deeply frustrated by sluggish job growth, the administration is refocusing its efforts on job creation.
“Government can’t create these businesses, but it can give entrepreneurs the support they need to open their doors, expand, or hire more workers,” Obama said in the radio address.

The Small Business Administration said on Nov. 23 that it has run through all of the $375 million Congress allocated to temporarily waive fees and boost SBA guarantees on small business loans, said CNNMoney.com.

SBA chief Karen Mills put out a statement two weeks ago cautioning banks that funds were low but believed the money would last through December.

Congress approved funds for the SBA through February 16, 2010. SBA officials would like to extend the lending program through that date, estimating it would need about $100 million, according to CreditDaily.com. The SBA says the program has resulted in more than 40,000 loans to small businesses.

The government is considering other programs to benefit small businesses. Earlier in the month, President Obama announced a plan to offer banks low-interest government loans in order to encourage lending to small businesses. With $200 billion left in the TARP bailout fund, Senate Democrats want some $40 billion spent on small business loans. And Goldman Sachs said recently that it would spend $500 million to help thousands of struggling small businesses.

A Commerce Department report released Thursday that showed growth in the gross domestic product sent the stock market soaring, with the Dow Jones posting a nearly 200 point gain.

At the end of trading on Friday, however, that gain was erased by another Commerce Depart report that said consumer spending dropped in September by the largest amount in nine months, according to the the New York Times.

The Dow Jones dropped nearly 250 points, or 2.5 percent.

The U.S. economy expanded by 3.5 percent between July and September, and household purchases rose 3.4 percent, according to the Thursday Commerce Department figures.

Much of the growth was attributable to government incentives such as the “cash-for-clunkers” program which spurred consumer spending on automobiles and an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers.

Purchases of durable goods, including autos, jumped 22 percent, and residential construction rose 23 percent in the last quarter, reported Bloomberg News.

That trend was reversed when the cash-for-clunkers program ended in September, said the New York Times.

Unemployment figures also remain dismal, leading President Obama to say the economy has “a long way to go” before it makes a full recovery.

The jobless rate reached a 26-year high of 9.8 percent in September, up from 7.6 percent when Obama took office in January, Bloomberg reported. Many economists predict the unemployment rate will top 10 percent in 2010.