Vice President Kamala Harris, from the left, US President Joe Biden and Senate Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, wear protective masks during a meeting with Democratic senators in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington Wednesday 3 February. , 2021 to discuss the stimulation of Covid-19.
Stefani Reynolds | Bloomberg | Getty Images
America’s small business owners have been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, and despite two rounds of federal loan programs aimed at helping smaller employers, a majority on Main Street are still calling for more help.
Sixty-three percent of small business owners support the $ 1.9 trillion Covid aid package currently being pushed by President Joe Biden’s administration and debated in Congress, according to the latest quarterly CNBC | SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey.
That includes 46% of Republican small business owners who support the new Democratic government’s first major bill. In fact, Biden’s aid package has far more support from Republicans than Biden himself. Only 14% of Republican small business owners say they approve of Biden’s approach to his role as president.
Support for more enlightenment comes as confidence among small business owners plummeted to a new low since the quarterly tracking survey began in 2017. The Small Business Confidence Index fell from 48 out of a possible 100 in the fourth quarter last year to 43 quarters. In addition, the number of small business owners who said they believe they can continue for more than a year under current business conditions fell from 67% in the fourth quarter to 55%.
The CNBC | SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey in the first quarter of 2021 was conducted from January 25 to January 31 using the SurveyMonkey platform and included responses from 2,111 small business owners across the country.
The debate about more federal aid has become more partisan among small business owners now that former President Donald Trump has left. In the fourth quarter, a whopping 83% of small business owners expressed support for what became a $ 900 billion package passed by Congress and signed by Trump in late December.
“There are more Republicans than Democrats who have small businesses,” said Laura Wronski, SurveyMonkey’s research science manager. “When we took the last poll, it was after the election, but it was still in this interim period where … there might have been a little bit of doubt in people’s minds. [about the outcome]. I think people’s perceptions may have hardened when they were a little more up for grabs in December. Since this is the opening pitch of Biden’s administration, it becomes easier to say yes or no. “
Support for the latest package may have also declined, Wronski says, due to the possibility that it will include an increase in the federal minimum wage, a measure typically unpopular with business owners. The survey found that 54% of small business owners are against raising the federal minimum wage to $ 15 / hour, while 44% support the increase.
Strong decline in Main Street business outlook
Overall, small business confidence was hit by a sharp drop in the number of small business owners who said overall business conditions are ‘good’ (from 39% in the fourth quarter of 2020 to 29% this quarter), as well as by large increases in the number of small business owners who expect potential changes in tax, trade, regulatory and even immigration policies to negatively impact their businesses in the coming year – all largely due to a ‘crash’ in confidence among Republican small business owners.
Wronski noted that a year ago, only 17% of Republicans said they expected government regulations to negatively impact their business. This quarter, that number is 82%, essentially more than a quadrupling year over year. Meanwhile, in the first quarter of 2020, 40% of Democrats said they expect regulatory changes to have a negative effect on their businesses, and this quarter that number has dropped to 12%. “That’s a good example of how the increase in Democrats ‘confidence cannot offset the decline in Republicans’ confidence. The magnitude is just as different between the two groups in terms of how much their perceptions have shifted from year to year.” , she said.
Confidence among Republican small business owners has completely collapsed since Trump lost the 2020 election to Biden. The small business confidence index for Republicans is 32, which is 25 points lower than in the third quarter of 2020, the last poll conducted before the election. It is also 9 points below the lowest trust value for small Democratic business owners during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Conversely, confidence among small business owners who identify as Democrats has risen to 63, up 17 points from the pre-election poll.