(RoyalPatriot.com )- Business owners don’t like what the Biden administration is doing and don’t have a lot of confidence that the near future is going to be very bright.
The National Federation of Independent Business recently released its Optimism Index, which showed another drop of 0.1 points last month, down to 93.1. That marked the fifth month in a row that the index was below 98, which is what the average had been over the last 48 years.
In a release accompanying the results, the NFIB said that:
“Expectations for better business conditions have deteriorated every month since January.”
One of the survey questions the NFIB poses is whether business owners are expecting conditions to be better for their business over the next six months. The results of that showed a drop of four points to net negative 54%. That marks the lowest level that the NFIB has ever record in the 48-year history of the survey.
The biggest challenge facing businesses continues to be inflation, with 28% of business owners reporting it to be their top concern. In response to out-of-control inflation, a net 72% of businesses said they have raised their average sales prices of goods and services. That marks a two-point increase in just one month.
That percentage also ties the highest mark in the survey’s history, with the record originally set back in March of this year. It’s also a whopping 32 points more than it was just a year ago, in May of 2021.
Commenting on the results of the survey, the chief economist of the NFIB, Bill Dunkelberg, said:
“Inflation continues to outpace compensation, which has reduced real incomes across the nation. Small business owners remain very pessimistic about the second half of the year as supply chain disruptions, inflation and the labor shortage are not easing.”
Those comments are a far cry from the rhetoric that’s coming out of the Biden administration, which should probably not be a surprise at this point. President Joe Biden and his minions seem to be out of touch with reality and don’t truly understand what’s going on — or how to get a handle on it.
The Biden administration says that the job market is good, yet the monthly jobs report that the NFIB put out revealed that 51% of business owners had job openings that they reported they couldn’t fill during that period. Of those who were trying to hire and couldn’t, 92% said they didn’t receive any qualified applicants for the open positions.
That resulted in 23% of those surveyed saying that the quality of labor available to them was the top priority they have for their business, behind only inflation. Another 12% said that the increased cost of labor was the top problem their business is facing.
Conditions are obviously challenging for everyone right now, and while the Federal Reserve is trying to curb inflation, that’s not necessarily going to help the situation for business owners.
Something needs to be done fast, though, because their confidence in the Biden administration continues to wane.
