Average Joes: Suburban small businesses say they need more help

Thanks to the final debate between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, "Joe the Plumber" has become Joe Cool.

The phrase refers to an actual person - Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher - but McCain and Obama repeated it so often during Wednesday's debate that it became shorthand for the average American working stiff. On Thursday, bloggers, pundits and media outlets across the country buzzed about the plight of Joe the Plumber.

The suburbs are home to many of these "Joes" - people who own, or used to own, small businesses - and they're not all plumbers. A few of them on Thursday discussed the current economic landscape for small businesses, and what they would like to see in the years ahead.

First up is a true local version of Joe the Plumber: Joe Bero, owner of Joe Bero Plumbing in Elgin.

"To be honest, I think they're just (humoring) us," Bero said of McCain and Obama. "I don't think either candidate is going to do much for us."

Bero represents the fourth generation of his family's ownership of the company, which got started in Elgin in 1923. The company, which handles commercial customers only, has managed to do well during the recent economic downturn, but Bero said he knows other small businesses haven't been so lucky.

"Gas prices are hurting everybody," he said. "They make everything more expensive. And insurance might be my biggest cost. I have a son-in-law who's a carpenter and he had to change trades. A lot of businesses just can't make it work."

As for which candidate could make things better, Bero said he's not sure either stands out.

"When you talk about things like gas prices, I'm not sure there's much the government can do at all anytime soon," he said.

Then, there's Joe the Paver: Joe McCarthy, president and co-owner of Joe's Blacktop in Glendale Heights.

McCarthy has been in the paving/construction business for 20 years, and he said things have never looked as bad as they do now. He estimated that six or seven small paving companies in DuPage County have shut down in the last year or so. He's seen trucks from as far away as Wisconsin and the far South suburbs like Joliet doing work in the area.

"That tells me that the work is drying up all over the metropolitan area," McCarthy said. "Now these companies are coming up here, taking work from established local companies like us. These companies are desperate; they're like scavengers now."

Gas prices and an increasingly difficult loan process are among the factors contributing to the slowdown, he said. His company, which does residential work mostly, now employees about five people, down from a high of eight or nine, he said.

McCarthy didn't watch Wednesday's debate - "I was working, trying to make a living," he said - but he believes Obama presents the best hope for change.

"I think he'll make it easier for small businesses to get loans, and I think he'll keep the tax burden lower," he said. "Overall, and this is just my opinion, he's the candidate who will make things easier for the working man."

Finally, we talked to Joe the Drywaller: Joe Warden of Ingleside, who all but shut down his drywall company in 2007 to take a full-time job with the village of Fox Lake.

"The phone just stopped ringing," Warden said. "The price of gas went up. The cost of materials went up. We couldn't provide the kind of price people wanted."

Warden, who was a drywaller for more than 30 years, said he still does the occasional drywall project on the side, usually for friends. As for whether he'll be able to get his business back up and running, he couldn't say.

"I'm not sure, I might be getting too old for it," the 60-year-old said with a chuckle.

Warden said he hasn't made a choice yet between Obama or McCain, adding that he hasn't heard anything in the campaign that really impressed him.

"The government does have to do something for the small businesses," he said. "There's a lot of people struggling."