NFIB Job Creation Plans ChartNews headlines are trumpeting the Labor Department's report this morning of a better-than-expected increase in hiring nationally in July, but the National Federation of Independent Business has issued a grim report on small employers and job growth based on its latest monthly random survey of 1,803 NFIB members.

U.S. employers overall added 163,000 jobs in July—the biggest monthly uptick in five months. But small businesses eliminated jobs for a second month in a row "at a time when growth is needed," NFIB Chief Economist William Dunkelberg reported in a statement. The NFIB survey results indicated a net job loss per small firm over the past few months (seasonally adjusted) of .04. "Readings had been on the rise; from December to May they were zero or positive, suggesting that employment might be turning around. But June, and now July, have ended that possibility," Dunkelberg stated.

To be sure, nearly 80 percent of small business owners surveyed made no net change to employment in

Mitch Goldstone, CEO of ScanMyPhotos.com, won a $7.25 billion settlement against credit card companies in favor of merchants.

While politicians have been arguing over who's doing more for small business, one independent businessman with no campaign agenda has dedicated the last seven years of his life to pursuing a lawsuit advocating for merchants like himself. Mitch Goldstone, the CEO of ScanMyPhotos.com, became a small business hero last week when he won a $7.25 billion settlement—the largest private antitrust settlement in U.S. history—that promises to put large sums of money back into the pockets of millions of businesses that accept credit cards.

Goldstone, of Irvine, Calif., was the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit filed in 2005 that alleged that Visa and MasterCard illegally fixed interchange fees—the so-called swipe fees that U.S. merchants pay the card companies for the privilege of accepting consumers' credit payments.

Yahoo! Small Business Advisor spoke with Goldstone as he celebrated his legal victory last week.

Yahoo! SBA: This is a real David vs. Goliath story. How did it start?

More business owners are getting credit with personal cards

Small business issues continue to hold center stage in election season. Here's a roundup of current events and reports from around the web this week related to small business and politics, including new legislation that would support immigrant entrepreneurs, various explorations of the access-to-credit crisis, and a discussion of tax cuts and small business.

Supporting immigrant entrepreneurs

A Democrat and a Republican in the House have teamed up to introduce a bill that would offer green cards to foreign entrepreneurs who live in the U.S. and establish and invest a minimum of $125,000 in a business here that creates and sustains full-time employment for at least three U.S. workers over two years. The National Small Business Association blogged its support for the legislation, which it says would also modify the EB-5 visa program to attract additional foreign investment.

Fewer debt delinquencies

Small business lending in June hit its lowest point since October, but was up two percent

The Olympics officially start today - in fact they have already started. So it isn't surprising that even the business news is dominated by sports or that other issues are getting pushed to the back pages. But the Olympics can also be a big opportunity for small business and we ran a short article with some tips on how a small business can make the most of Olympic fever - and yes, it isn't too late to try some of them out. Take a look at Five tips for Olympics-related sales. Other stories we highlighted on Yahoo! Small Business Advisor included a couple of stories about the recent fuss around daily deals and coupons. We take a look at some of the affected businesses and suggest a list of ten tips for working with daily deals and coupons. Another po

Success

pular article from Yahoo! Small Business Advisor looked at one of the real secrets to success in life.

If you haven't taken the plunge yet, hopefully some of these articles give you the impetus to start your own business — and if you do,

Holiday Gift Guide[This article was originally published on Meylah]

Imagine if tens of thousands of people could see your products all at once. They can if you're featured in a magazine's holiday gift guide. While getting your products in magazines may seem difficult, I can tell you from first hand experience that it's actually very simple once you know how.

You might think the holidays are far way, but in fact now is the best time to get started. Here are 3 simple tips to get you on the right path!

First, make a list of story ideas. Magazines receive mountains of product pitches every day. Stand out from the crowd by sending a story, rather than a sales sheet. Tell the story of a problem your product solves or an event that involves you. Whatever your story, make sure it's catchy. Journalists and editors are busy people, but if you can hand them a fully formed story, they'll be interested.

Next, make a list of magazines. Make the most of your time by choosing only magazines that are suitable and have

At a time when Republicans and Democrats can't seem to come to terms on anything, most politicians are in agreement on one thing: the corporate tax code should be simplified.

Tax code complexity costs employers billions

We reported here several weeks ago that far fewer small businesses than the Federal government expected had claimed a tax credit made available to them through the Affordable Care Act. Business owners cited the complexity of complying with the tax code as a major impedance.

Now in a front page story titled, "Firms Pass Up Tax Breaks, Citing Hassles, Complexity," the Wall Street Journal reports that this is true not just for health insurance tax credits but for many other tax breaks available to employers. Fed up with paperwork and leery of inviting IRS scrutiny, businesses are opting to skip deductions for energy efficient buildings, for hiring unemployed veterans and workers from disadvantaged groups, for increasing research, and for producing goods domestically, according to the Journal's report.

Though large

Daily deal promotions are not sustainable marketing strategies for most businesses

Many business owners who offer "daily deals" promotions wind up losing money, failing to win new customers, or driving away loyal patrons when the coupon crowds descend. Nevertheless, the marketing trend is here to stay. That's the opinion of Utpal Dholakia, professor of management at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University, who has become something of an expert on the expanding industry that includes companies such as Groupon and LivingSocial.

Dholakia, who first began researching and writing about small businesses' use of discounted online coupons two years ago, says he was pessimistic about their sustainability. "People are offering their products at half price and only getting one-quarter of the revenue," Dholakia tells Yahoo! Small Business Advisor. "I wrote an entire article this time last year looking at specific deals, and I was extremely negative."

A year later, however, Dholakia says he has found some business owners who are happy with their returns on daily

chequeGold is on people's minds a lot right now. No, not THAT kind of gold - Olympic gold. And the regular kind of gold too - because for small businesses the bottom line is critical.Besides the usual financial news of public company quarterly profits and the slow and steady implosion of various European economies, there is still time for some concrete advice. On Yahoo! Small Business Advisor we highlighted stories about small businesses finding new ways to get cash and funding, seven strategies to make the most of your budget as a startup, how to tell that it's 'time to kiss your boss goodbye and become an entrepreneur,' and (unfortunately) how small business owners aren't finding themselves able to take vacations this Summer.

If you haven't taken the plunge yet, hopefully some of these articles give you the impetus to start your own business — and if you do, we have tools to help. Besides our domain name, web hosting and ecommerce products, we also have just added an innovative marketing