Small Businesses, Poverty, and Social Policy: The Effect of the ACA on the Relationship between Small Businesses and Poverty

Abstract

The Affordable Care Act, enacted in 2010, was meant to improve health insurance access for the uninsured and hard to insure across the country. However, in doing this, it placed significant burdens on individuals, large businesses, and small businesses. This paper attempts to address those new burdens for small businesses and whether they negatively affect those employed by small businesses, particularly those at or near the poverty line. Overall, small businesses have been shown to help decrease poverty in the communities in which they operate, but the burdens placed on small businesses as a result of the ACA negate this impact. This paper discusses the new costs and benefits associated with the ACA on small businesses and their employees. It also attempts to address this concern from an ethical perspective and provide potential policy recommendations for healthcare legislation moving forward.