FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Mike O’Halloran, NFIB State Director in Maryland, 301-335-1063 / [email protected]
(ANNAPOLIS) March 10, 2022 – Mike O’Halloran, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), Maryland and the nation’s leading small business advocacy organization, released the following statement today about potential measures in the state legislature to provide relief from soaring gas prices:
“Small business owners are joining the call for relief at the pump. Maryland received more than $7 billion in federal infrastructure funding earlier this year. That should more than offset any potential losses to the state’s Transportation Trust Fund from a gas tax holiday. For many small businesses, the ever-increasing costs of materials and labor as they try to recover from the pandemic is unsustainable. Unlike bigger businesses, small businesses do not have the margin to absorb such a dramatic increase in costs.”
According to the NFIB Research Foundation’s February Small Business Economic Trend Report, 68 percent of small business owners have had to raise prices due to increased costs in materials and labor. Additionally, owners citing inflation as their most important business problem increased to 26 percent, the highest level since the third quarter of 1981.
“With today’s news from the Bureau of Revenue Estimates that Maryland is projecting an increase of $1.6 billion to its current budget surplus and federal money to backfill lost dollars, there is no reason not to provide this relief.”
###
