Holly Wade joins Yahoo! Finance discusses the small business economy and increasing levels of uncertainty
WASHINGTON, DC (October 9, 2024) – NFIB Research Center Executive Director Holly Wade joins Yahoo!’s Brad Smith. Treasurer discusses the state of the small business economy and the increasing level of uncertainty on Main Street.
Wade examines data from the NFIB’s September SBET survey, showing how inflation, financing costs and tax pressures are increasing small business owners’ uncertainty about their future business conditions. There is.
Watch Mr. Wade’s interview here: https://finance.yahoo.com/video/inflation-election-compounding-small-business-170112841.html
“(Uncertainty) is at an all-time high in our 50 years of research, and a lot of that is the uncertainty around the election (and) what that means for small businesses going forward. It has to do with whether it’s going to be environmentally friendly or not.” And we’re facing a massive tax increase, probably at the end of 2025. Therefore, all of this is weighing on small and medium-sized enterprises. ”
“In addition to that, what is the (Federal Reserve) doing? Looking ahead, how that might impact decisions about capital investment financing (and) business expansion. We’ll see. Understandably, financing has been very expensive for many small business owners.”
“The number of people who say they have job openings and are unable to fill them is down, but still very high, back to 2019 levels. (This is) similar to the hiring plan. ”. So we’ve fallen off the kind of stratospheric levels that we’ve seen over the last few years. However, as small business owners report in our survey, the labor market still appears to be fairly strong. But again, those uncertainties will impact how they move forward. ”
“There’s a lot of concern right now about what their tax rates will be. The 20% small business deduction on qualified income was a huge benefit for small businesses in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, and it expires at the end of next year. And one of the main concerns they have going into 2025 is that Congress passes a bill to make it permanent and the administration signs it into law, and they are looking for a lot of uncertainty on that front… Almost a quarter of our members say inflation is the single biggest problem in running their business.”
