{"id":8429,"date":"2026-04-07T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=8429"},"modified":"2026-04-08T23:14:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:14:03","slug":"small-businesses-are-doing-fine-thats-a-problem-for-the-u-s-chamber-of-commerce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=8429","title":{"rendered":"Small businesses are \u2018doing fine.\u2019 That\u2019s a problem for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Small businesses see what\u2019s happening in Iran as an omen of tough times ahead, and it may just mean a bigger loss for Main Street in the coming months.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The U.S. Chamber of Commerce\u2019s Small Business Index, which measures small business owner sentiment, fell to 67.0 in the first quarter, retreating further from its all-time high of 72.0 in the third quarter of 2025. The latest number may slightly undersell the anxiety surrounding the Iran war: the survey was conducted between Feb. 25 and March 11, meaning three of those 14 days occurred before the outbreak of the war.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The data captured in real time what small business owners felt just as the war broke out, and they didn\u2019t like what they saw.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas Sullivan, the Chamber\u2019s vice president of small business policy, said the picture is more alarming than the index score alone suggests. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHonestly, they\u2019re doing fine,\u201d he told <em>Fortune<\/em>. \u201cThe challenge is that fine really isn\u2019t good enough, especially when you look at the pro-growth incentives from the tax law that was signed last July.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Only 28% of small business owners now say the U.S. economy is in good health, a 10-point collapse in a single quarter. Plans to increase staffing fell 12 percentage points to just 30%, the steepest single-quarter drop in the index\u2019s history. <\/p>\n<p>Sullivan said the Iran conflict is a key reason why. \u201cA key difference with the military conflict in Iran is that there\u2019s a direct connection to rising gas prices, and that is the double whammy for small business owners,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s more immediate, it\u2019s more in your face, and it more directly impacts how you view the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That double whammy compounds a pressure that was already four years in the making. Inflation has been the top challenge for small businesses for 17 consecutive quarters, with 53% of owners naming it their biggest concern, up from 45% in the prior quarter. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom a small business perspective, inflation is anything that costs more,\u201d Sullivan clarified. \u201cThis is not the specific economics definition of inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 28% who say the national economy is in good health stands in stark contrast to the 69% who rate their own business as healthy. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe more control a small business has on the numbers, the more optimistic they are,\u201d Sullivan explained. \u201cNo small business owner is going to hire a new employee, if in the back of their mind they think, in six months, they\u2019re going to have to fire them. Because that decision is not a spreadsheet decision. It is an emotional decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nearly one in five (19%) say offering employee benefits and healthcare remains their biggest challenge. \u201cUncertainty is like, \u2018we can\u2019t grow, but we\u2019re doing fine, and in order to maintain this level, I\u2019ve got to keep my best employees,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why the concern for the cost of benefits is going up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is also the first quarter where small businesses are not increasing their technology spend. \u201cWith the advent of AI and the efficiencies that small business owners are realizing, you would like to see their technology spend, their investments, going up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Sullivan remains cautiously optimistic that the slide is not a permanent trend. \u201cIf the military conflict is over and small businesses are listening to their tax advisors and making significant investments, then we would see the numbers going upward,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s where I\u2019m optimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Small businesses see what\u2019s happening in Iran as an omen of tough times ahead, and it may just mean a bigger loss for Main Street in the coming months.\u00a0 The&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":959,"featured_media":8430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[2305,9147,2878,2884,3353,2827,668],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Small businesses are \u2018doing fine.\u2019 That\u2019s a problem for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - Frisco Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Small business owners are feeling uneasy about the Iran war. 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