Small Business Optimism Ticks Down Again in March

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Tuesday morning reported that its small business optimism index for March fell 0.3 point from 92.9 in February to come in at 92.6. The March reading remains well below the index’s 42-year average of 98.

The four “hard” measures of the index posted mixed results last month. The job creation component fell 1 percentage point in March to 9%, the job openings component slipped three points to 25%, capital spending plans rose two points to come in at 25% and inventory investment plans fell two points to a −2 reading.

Some 22% of small business owners reported raising employees’ pay in the past three months. That’s unchanged on a seasonally adjusted basis from the February total. Just 16% are planning to raise wages in the next three months, an increase of four points month over month.
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In its commentary on the report the NFIB noted:

There is no cheerleader for the economy who convincingly promises improvement. There is little hope that government will constructively address the problems that concern consumers and small businesses. The most likely prospects to assume the presidency don’t appear to be connected to reality. There is no prospect that the avalanche of resource-wasting regulations will abate much less be reversed. The “experts” at the Federal Reserve only raise uncertainty with their pronouncements and seem detached from the real economy, focused instead on financial markets.

Fred Graziano, head of Commercial Banking at TD Bank, commented on the March report:

Small Business Optimism is disappointing based on today’s data, but it is not unexpected. Ongoing uncertainty over the recent market volatility and changing political climate have become constant concerns. We expect small business optimism to improve during the next several months, accompanied by continued small business growth.

The NFIB reports that 25% of business owners currently have positions open that they are not able to fill (down 3 percentage points from February) and that 41% said there were few or no qualified applicants for the open positions, down a point from the prior month’s total.

Business owners said their single most important problem is taxes (22%), government regulations and red tape (21%) and poor sales (13%). The least important problems are financing and interest rates (2%) and inflation (2%).