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~940px is close to the safest assumption you can make of the minimum horizontal resolution for an average user.

Scrollbar takes only about 20 pixels, if we are taking about minimum height of 1024px, that means you can go up to 990px, 960px or so.

I suspect you want a couple dozen horizontal pixels for what designers call "negative space".

1000 actually works quite well with no horizontal scrollbars. And for most local small business sites there are more visitors above 1024 than below.