Small Business: New Congress Offers Hope
Members of the small business community are primed for a big upshot as a result of Tuesday’s Congressional elections , with 62 percent reporting they believe the new Republican controlled House will have a favorable impact on small businesses overall. An additional 58 percent believe their own business situation will improve because of the election results, according to a survey this week from Manta Media.
“The majority of our respondents–70 percent–are involved in small businesses with fewer than 10 employees, while 20 percent are involved with businesses that have between 10 and 50 employees. These are the small businesses that run our country and their voice resonated at the polls,” said Pamela Springer, president and CEO of Manta Media Inc.
The survey of 1,189 small business owners and employees (the majority of them owners) found that 69 percent said the Obama Administration has hurt small business. Moreover, 58 percent of the respondents said they are more confident now that they will be able to grow their business than they were two years ago when the Democrats and President Barack Obama triumphed in the elections.
As small businesses look ahead to 2011, the majority of those surveyed said their greatest concern is the nation’s economic outlook (22 percent), while 21 percent said taxes were their biggest worry. Seventeen percent (17 percent) of the respondents said the economic outlook in their own community was their top concern, while 15 percent indicated healthcare gives them the most angst. Labor costs, a conventional concern for small business owners, was the least of their worries and cited by only 2 percent of the respondents as their greatest concern.