Fifty-five percent of small business owners say they would not start a new business today, according to a new industry survey.
An even larger majority of manufacturers and small business owners, 69 percent, blame the Obama administration’s regulatory policies for hurting their sectors of the economy.
“The findings of this survey show that manufacturers and other small businesses have a starkly negative outlook for their future—with good reason,” said Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. “There is far too much uncertainty, too many burdensome regulations and too few policymakers willing to put aside their egos and fulfill their responsibilities to the American people.”
The survey was commissioned by NAM and the National Federation of Independent Business.
The benefits of owning a small business are dwindling, according to one West Virginia small business owner.
“There’s reasons you have a small business, there’s things that are good,” John Culler told The Daily Caller News Foundation, naming independence as one reason to own your own business. “But once you keep adding more and more layers of something, you inhibit growth.”
Unpredictable health care costs were also named as a problem for small business.
Other key findings of the survey include 54 percent of respondents saying that countries like China and India are more supportive of small businesses than the United States, and 67 percent citing too much uncertainty today to expand, grow or hire new employees.
“If you are working for a big business, the worst thing that can happen to you is you get fired — that’s horrible,” Culler said, comparing big businesses to smaller ones.
Bill McInturff of POS, who conducted the survey, said, “The data in this survey offer a striking picture of how American businesses view the current state of the U.S. economy. It’s clear that small business owners and manufacturers are becoming increasingly more frustrated by the federal government’s inability to solve America’s economic problems. Manufacturers place most of the blame squarely on policies coming out of Washington.”
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