Small Business Survey Says…

Earlier today the NFIB released its monthly reading on small business sentiment. Small business sentiment hit its highest level since 1983 in July.

In addition to its main sentiment indicator, NFIB also asks survey takers what their number one problem is as a small business owner. Below is a chart showing the results from this question going back to early 2007. We’ve smoothed out the chart by showing the rolling 3-month average.

As shown, Quality of Labor has shot up to the number one problem spot in recent months, over-taking Taxes, and Government Red Tape, which have both been drifting lower for the last couple of years. After these three problems, the next biggest are Cost of Insurance, Competition, Other, Poor Sales, and Cost of Labor.

While inflation and interest rates have definitely been a concern for investors recently, these two categories are still at the very bottom of the barrel when it comes to the concerns of small business owners.

There’s a lot to glean from the historical trends in the chart below, so be sure to give it a long look!

Below we chart each of the various problems for small business owners that are shown in the chart above. After the Trump tax cuts were passed, we saw a notable drop in the number of survey takers listing “Taxes” as their number one problem. That’s to be expected of course, but it’s still notable to see the impact the tax cuts had on sentiment.

Inflation concerns spiked significantly during the Financial Crisis, but it remains an after-thought as a problem for small business owners right now. We’ve seen a very slight tick up, but nothing significant yet. (You’ll see below that the “Cost of Labor” category has started to tick higher, though, which is an inflation measure as well).

Poor Sales is the main reading that you don’t want to see start ticking higher in this survey, and at this point, it’s still making new lows.