Just 2 Percent of Small Businesses in Top Tax Bracket

I think all those hardworking fact checkers have gotten tired of dispelling this one, but it hasn't stopped Rep. John Boehner from continuing to claim that going back to pre-Bush taxes for the wealthy will hurt small businesses and therefore job growth.

Well.... there's been a lot written about this and Republicans, and Joe Lieberman, are wrong. According to the US Census population survey, the mean income for non-farm, self-employment filers in 2009 was $33,000.

A 2009 article in Bloomberg states:

An analysis done by the Tax Policy Center shows that 8.9% of individuals who report small business income or loss (including self-employment income; income from S-corps, partnerships, and limited liability companies; farm income; and income from rental property and royalties), have household income greater than $250,000. But fewer than 2% of those filers fall into the top two tax brackets, according to the center's analysis.

Whether those 2 percent are creating jobs, according to this Minn. Independent article:

Economists from Moody’s Analytics, in an analysis of Federal Reserve data going back to 1989, came to the same conclusion. In a report released this week, Moody’s economists found that spending is far more impacted by the business cycle, such as the fluctuation of stock prices, than tax cuts.

In contrast, giving money to the poor is the best way to stimulate the economy because they actually spend it.