Small Business Owners Share This One Major Concern: Survey

Small enterprise optimism is at a four-year excessive, however persistent financial points have made this 12 months’s presidential cycle much more necessary for small enterprise house owners.

The Q3 2024 MetLife/U.S. Chamber of Commerce Small Business Index launched Tuesday confirmed that small enterprise house owners are extra upbeat now about their companies than they’ve been up to now 4 years, however nonetheless share one persistent, widespread concern: For greater than two years, inflation has topped the list because the factor enterprise house owners are most anxious about.

Associated: We Asked 500 Small Business Owners What They Thought About the Economy, Inflation and the Upcoming Election. Here Are the Results.

Most small enterprise house owners surveyed (59%) acknowledged that the financial system and inflation needs to be crucial priorities for the following administration, with 56% noting that inflation was their private largest concern.

Income was the second highest concern (28%), adopted by worker advantages (16%) and rates of interest (15%).

Greater than seven in 10 enterprise house owners (71%) indicated that they had been extra within the 2024 election than they’d been within the 2020 election, whereas almost 4 out of 5 (78%) stated that the following President and Congress ought to prioritize the financial system and inflation, an over 20% improve from survey outcomes carried out on the similar time 4 years in the past.

Associated: How the 2024 Election Outcome Could Affect Interest Rates and Impact Your Finances

The index was based mostly on a survey of 752 small enterprise house owners from July 18 to August 2. It quantified total optimism with a rating of 71.2, higher than the 50.3 score recorded 4 years prior within the third quarter of 2020 and better than every score recorded between Q3 2020 and Q3 2024.

Though the issues had been plentiful, there was additionally some optimism, too.

Of the small enterprise house owners surveyed, 73% anticipated to extend income subsequent 12 months — the best share because the Index began in 2017. Hiring can be on the rise, with 44% anticipating including extra employees in 2025.

“The native financial system feels robust, eating places and procuring facilities are busy,” one enterprise proprietor from Marietta, Georgia acknowledged within the report.