Small Business Blues

According to a US Chamber of Commerce report of 1409 owners and executives of small businesses with annual revenues of $25 million or less (564 were Chamber of Commerce members), 84% felt the US economy is on the wrong track, but 61% believed their own company was on track. As for hiring, 64% will keep the same number of employees, 19% will hire new employees, and 12% will layoff workers. The biggest obstacle to hiring? Economic uncertainty (55%), followed by lack of sales and uncertainty about what Washington will do next (34% each).

About 80% viewed the ballooning national debt as a threat to their business, 79% noted over-regulation is strangling their business, and 62% are worried more about what government will do next instead of what it has already done. Roughly 79% assert taxation, regulation, and legislation make hiring more workers difficult, with 75% blaming the new healthcare law for restricting hiring.

These owners and executives are a generally gloomy bunch, with 39% contending America's best days are behind us, versus only 20% say our best days are in front of us. Sheesh. One wonders what they would have said during the Depression of the 1930s, or the early 1890s, or mid 1870s. Economies are like sine waves -- they rise and fall and rise.