A recent poll reveals nearly half of all small business owners are in danger of closing their doors for good this fall if their earnings don't improve soon.
According to a poll done by Alignable, a networking and referral resource for small businesses, 47% of small business owners polled said they are at risk of closure. Alignable put the causes of these small businesses' concerns succinctly.
These challenges include record-breaking inflation, higher-than-normal gas prices, rent hikes, labor issues, a still-broken supply chain, reports of reduced consumer spending, elevating interest rates, recessionary fears, and the fact that several businesses have not recouped losses from 2020-2021 yet.
At the same time last year, the number of small businesses in danger of closure was 35% — even though that was 12% lower than this year's number, it was still higher than normal. The risk of closure is slightly higher for minority and women-owned businesses, too — 52% and 53%, respectively, reported they need to see significant increases if they are going to stay open beyond this fall.
One-tenth of the business owners polled need more than 125% of the revenue they earned last summer to stay open. A majority of this cohort does not expect to earn anywhere close to that much. Only about 24% of businesses polled said they expect more revenue than last summer.
Even more unsettling, there are fewer businesses in this year's poll numbers that say they have recovered their pre-COVID revenue rates than last summer — in 2021, 33% said they were earning the same or more than they had been before COVID and this year, only 26% said the same. Alignable said this points to what 63% of the people polled said — that the recent skyrocketing inflation is hurting them more than lingering effects from COVID lockdowns. In other words, Biden can't blame Republicans, the prior administration, or the Russian president for this enormous crisis — even though he continues to do just that.
As Townhall reported, it has been more than 40 years since inflation was this high in the United States. Townhall also reported that Biden's astronomic inflation rates have caused income to go down an average of 3.6% for all Americans. Groceries are 12% more expensive than last year, which is the biggest annual increase since 1979. Gas is, unsurprisingly, 60% more expensive than last year. It hasn't increased in price like that since 1981.