The engine of the American economy is trying its best to start smoothly humming again, according to today’s release of the latest Small Business Economic Trends report (also called the Optimism Index) from National Federation of Independent Business, the nation’s leading small-business association. Now, can the surge in coronavirus cases abate long enough to take that engine for a test run on the road to recovery?
“What our latest Index tells me is that the Paycheck Protection Program is helping as planned and,  combined with the grittiness natural to all small-business owners, is slowly getting our economy back on track,” said Riley Johnson, Montana state director for NFIB. “If only we could get the foot of the COVID-19 crisis off the Superman’s cape of those small-business-owning job creators, we could expedite our national economic recovery.”
Eight of the 10 Index components rose in June, most sharply of all in the ‘real sales expectations’ component, followed distantly but solidly by ‘job openings,’ ‘good time to expand,’ and ‘job creation plans.’ The net percent of owners expecting higher real sales volumes improved 37 points to a net 13% of owners. The historic 61-point drop over March and April has been followed by a 55-point increase over the past 2 months as owners are expecting higher sales with business re-openings.
The NFIB Research Center has collected Small Business Economic Trends data with quarterly surveys since the 4th quarter of 1973 and monthly surveys since 1986. Survey respondents are drawn from a random sample of NFIB’s membership. The report is released on the second Tuesday of each month. This survey was conducted in April 2020. For more information about NFIB, please visit NFIB.com.
“Small businesses are navigating the various federal and state policies in order to reopen their business and they are doing their best to adjust their business decisions accordingly,” said NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg. “We’re starting to see positive signs of increased consumer spending, but there is still much work to be done to get back to pre-crisis levels.”