LANSING ? The compliance cost per employee for small manufacturers is at least double the compliance cost for medium to large manufacturers, a new study by the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration shows.
The study also shows companies with fewer than 20 employees spend $7,647 per employee each year to comply with federal regulations, compared with the $5,282 spent by firms with more than 500 employees.
The report thoroughly analyzes compliance costs for economic, workplace, environmental, and tax regulations. It details regulatory costs for five major sectors of the U.S. economy: manufacturing, trade (wholesale and retail), services, health care, and other (a residual category).
Among its other findings, the report also shows that the annual cost of federal regulations in the United States totaled $1.1 trillion in 2004.
The peer-reviewed study, The Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms, written by W. Mark Crain with funding from the Office of Advocacy, updates two earlier reports from 1995 and 2001, which showed similar patterns of disproportionate regulatory burden borne by small businesses.
For more information, click on SBAM.Org
