As anyone who regularly reads this website knows, we're a mixed bag of economic and political discourse, in addition to news and information relevant to HR and employee benefits.

But, as we'll see in the run-up to this contentious presidential election, if there ever was a time for the two to intersect on major political and societal influence, it's now. This is true especially of small businesses, which account for 99.7 percent of all employer firms and employ half of all private sector employees in the United States, according to the Small Business Administration.

Just this past week, we've learned a few things about the current state of small business ownership. For starters, it's more "stressful than raising a child"—at least according to Bank of America's Small Business Owner Report, which was released late last week.