National Small Business Survey Shows Strong Concern over Business Climate, Federal Deficit, Taxes and other Key Issues leading into 2016
For Immediate Release
Jack Mozloom, 202-406-4450 or 609-462-5610 (cell)
What do small
business owners think about the key issues that candidates for the White House
and Congress will be debating for the next year?
Washington, DC (October 12, 2015) – Sixty-three
percent of small business owners think the country is on the wrong track.
Sixty-seven percent rate the business climate fair or poor. And nearly
two thirds are very concerned about the size and growth of the federal
deficit. Those are just some of the results of a wide-ranging survey of
small business owners released today by the National Federation of
Independent Business (NFIB).
“Every candidate for every office will talk about small
business for the next 13 months. The real question is whether they’re
listening to small business,” said NFIB Research Director Holly Wade.
For example, according to the research 67 percent of small
business owners think their taxes are too high. Only six percent believe
they don’t pay enough. A large plurality of small business owners think
the personal income tax inhibits growth compared to other federal taxes.
And a plurality of small business owners think that Washington’s top economic
priority should be getting the federal budget under control.
“Compare what’s important to small business owners with what
official Washington is doing and there isn’t much overlap,” said Wade.
On no issue is that truer than health care. NFIB asked
small business owners what’s more important: bringing down the high cost of
health care or expanding coverage to the uninsured. More than twice as
many owners said it was more important to reduce costs.
“It’s noteworthy that five years after the ACA was enacted a
majority of small business owners still think that bringing down costs should
be the top priority. That tells us that the law isn’t working as
advertised, at least as far as small business owners are concerned,” said Wade.
Also on health care, a huge majority of small business
owners think that employers should be allowed to offer tax-deductible
reimbursements to help workers get coverage. Under an IRS regulation that
took effect this this year, that practice is now illegal. In fact,
businesses that reimburse workers for the cost of health care can now be fined
17 times more than businesses that fail to provide any coverage at all under
the ACA.
“This is a perfect example of how federal policy is
completely at odds with the small business community,” said Wade. “Many
small business owners can’t afford group coverage and they see health care
reimbursements as viable alternative. Three quarters don’t believe the
government should punish that decision.”
The NFIB survey, which randomly sampled small business
owners across the country, was conducted by Susquehanna Polling and Research, a
Harrisburg, PA firm. The results were gathered between April 20 and June
16, 2015.
To view the survey, please visit www.nfib.com/smallbizsurvey2015. To learn more about NFIB, please visit www.nfib.com.
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