Confidence Is Highest Among Millennials
Bank of America’s Fall 2014 Small Business Owner
Report, which surveyed 1,000 small business owners nationwide, found that half
of small business owners were confident their local economies would improve
over the next year and 45 percent believed the national economy would improve
during that period. Those numbers mark increases from last year’s survey, when
45 percent of small business owners said their local economies would improve
and 41 percent said the national economy would improve.
Confidence
levels break down along generational lines, with those levels being
particularly high among millenials, 82 percent of whom said their local
economies would improve over the next 12 months and 74 percent of whom said the
national economy would improve during that period. Fifty percent of so-called
Gen-Xers and 41 percent of baby boomers believed their local economies would
improve over the next year, and 45 percent of Gen-Xers and 35 percent of baby
boomers said the national economy would improve.
What This Means For Small Business:
The
relatively high level of confidence concerning local economies combined with a
notably lower level of confidence concerning the national economy seems to
reflect the findings of NFIB’s Small Business Optimism Index, which NFIB Chief
Economist Bill Dunkelberg described in a press
release as
a “mixed reading,” noting that while small business owners were making capital
investments and filling job openings, they could not “anticipate a better
economy. Basically they’re preparing to taxi the runway but they don’t expect
to take off anytime soon.”
Additional Reading:
The Bank of America
survey can be seen here. The Dallas
Morning News,
the San
Francisco Business Times,
the Atlanta
Business Chronicle,
the Washington
Business Journal,
MarketWatch, and Business
Wire are
among the outlets which reported regional numbers from the survey.
This news article is intended to keep small business owners apprised of current events that may affect them. It does not necessarily reflect NFIB’s policy position on such issues.
