Vice President Kamala Harris, from the left, US President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, wear protective masks while meeting with Democratic senators in the White House Oval Office in Washington, on Wednesday, February 3, 2021 to discuss relieving the Covid-19 stimulus.
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 small employers, most on Main Street are still asking for more help.
Sixty-three percent of small business owners support Covid’s $ 1.9 trillion aid package, currently promoted by President Joe Biden’s administration and under debate in Congress, according to the latest CNBC quarterly survey | SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey.
This includes 46% of Republican small business owners who show support for the new Democratic government’s first major legislative proposal. 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 how Biden is handling his job as president.
Support for more relief comes as confidence among small business owners has plummeted to a new all-time low since the quarterly tracking survey began in 2017. The Small Business Confidence Index has dropped from 48 out of 100 possible in the quarter last year’s quarter to 43 this quarter. In addition, the number of small business owners saying they believe they can continue operating for more than a year under current business conditions has dropped from 67% in the fourth quarter to 55%.
The CNBC Research | SurveyMonkey Small Business for 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 over more federal relief has become more partisan among small business owners, now that former President Donald Trump has stepped down. In the fourth quarter, an impressive 83% of small business owners expressed support for what became a $ 900 billion package approved by Congress and signed by Trump in late December.
“There are more Republicans than Democrats who own small businesses,” said SurveyMonkey’s scientific research manager, Laura Wronski. “When we answered the last poll, it was after the election, but it was still in that provisional period when … maybe there was still a little doubt in people’s minds [about the outcome]. I think people’s perceptions may have hardened, while in December they were a little more available. As this is the opening speech of the Biden administration, it is easier to say yes or no. “
Support for the most recent package may also have declined, says Wronski, due to the possibility of including an increase in the federal minimum wage, a typically unpopular measure among entrepreneurs. The survey found that 54% of small business owners are opposed to raising the federal minimum wage to $ 15 / hour, while 44% support the increase.
Sharp drop in Main Street business prospects
Overall, small business confidence has been hit by a sharp drop in the number of small business owners saying that general business conditions are “good” (from 39% in the fourth quarter of 2020 to 29% in this quarter), as well as big increases in the number of small business owners who expect potential changes in tax, commercial, regulatory and even immigration policy in the coming year, which will have a negative impact on their business – all largely as a result of a “crash” in trust among Republican small business owners.
Wronski noted that a year ago, only 17% of Republicans said they expected government regulations to have a negative impact on their business. In this quarter, that number is 82%, essentially more than a quadruplication year on year. Meanwhile, in the first quarter of 2020, 40% of Democrats said they expected regulation changes to have a negative impact on their business, and this quarter that number dropped to 12%. “This is a good example of how the increase in Democratic confidence is not able to compensate for the fall in Republican confidence. The magnitude is so different between the two groups in terms of how much their perceptions have changed year after year,” she said.
Confidence among Republican small business owners has plummeted since Trump lost the 2020 election to Biden. The small business confidence index for Republicans is 32, 25 points below what it was in the third quarter of 2020, the latest poll before the election. It is also 9 points below the lowest confidence reading for small Democratic business owners during Donald Trump’s presidency.
On the other hand, confidence among small business owners who identify themselves as Democrats has increased to 63, 17 points above the pre-election poll.