One prime suspect is ObamaCare, with its mandate that employers with 50 full-time employees or more must offer health insurance — not just some high-deductible coverage for catastrophes, but a costly package including every kind of Politically Correct bell and whistle.

Left-leaning college professors with guaranteed government pensions and a belief that the end justifies the means may say it’s a minor problem, but the fact is that small companies with any number of employees between 25 and 100 — that’s a lot of employers — are eyeing the 50-worker ObamaCare mandate and making their desperate survival plans accordingly.