Small business owners and retailers urged Congress and the credit card companies to reform interchange fees in order to enhance merchants' ability to hire new employees. 
Based on the national average salary for cashiers, if average interchange rates were reduced by 1 percent it would allow businesses to hire 1.3 million people, and if interchange fees were restricted in a way that brought the rate down to Australia's level of 0.5 percent, this system could create over 1.9 million jobs.
Hidden "swipe" fees cost American consumers and businesses $48 billion annually, an amount that goes straight to big credit card companies and banks and not to salaries for new employees.
Interchange fees have reached an all-time high. The fees have tripled since 2001 and the average American store owners now pays twice as much in swipe fees as they earn in profits.
For many businesses, the cost of swipe fees is the largest non-labor cost they face and are rising faster than any other costs, including healthcare costs.
"Consumers and merchants are paying $2 in interchange fees for every $100 of merchandise that is paid for with plastic," Jennifer Hatcher said, group vice president of Government Relations at the Food Marketing Institute and member of the Merchants Payments Coalition. "You take a year of those $2 payments, and those are peoples' salaries that are going straight to the credit card companies."
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