Small Biz Owners Say They're Frustrated By The Economy, Their Elected Leaders & Politics
DATA INSIGHTS | POLITICAL POLL | BOSTON, MA – May 22, 2024: Less than six months away from the 2024 U.S. elections, the majority of small business owners are unified around their disappointment over the economy and the performance of their elected officials at all levels of government.
Released today, Alignable's Spring 2024 Political Report reveals how U.S.-based small business owners feel about current tax policies, regulations, and overall economic challenges.
Many noted that they’re growing tired of polarizing politics (and politicians) and just want someone in office who can make life better and easier financially -- implementing tax cuts, controlling inflation, dropping high interest rates, and generally doing more for small businesses and less to benefit big business.
- 86% assert that inflation has hurt their businesses in the past year, with 59% saying the damage has been significant.
- 79% say taxes have been harmful to their businesses, with 46% of that group noting the effects have been very negative. In particular, many said taxes are just too high, especially since interest rates and inflation have reduced their cash on hand.
- 76% say current regulations have also been detrimental to their companies, with 43% adding the impact has been major.
- Only 6% said they’re not struggling with any issues and are thriving.
These findings are based on the sentiments of 3,310 randomly selected small business owners surveyed from 4/15/24 to 5/20/24, by Alignable, the largest online business networking platform in North America for small businesses with 9 million+ members.
Those surveyed represent solopreneurs and Mom & Pop Shops, all the way up to SMBs that have 50+ employees. A wide range of sectors were represented, as well, ranging from construction, real estate, finance, and healthcare to restaurants, retail, science & technology, and beauty.
Approval Ratings Reflect Economic Concerns
Beyond asking about tax policies, regulations, and the economy, we also explored small business owners’ feelings about the performance of politicians at the federal, state, and local levels.
When we asked if they thought their elected officials were "doing a good job" for small business owners, the results closely reflected the financial struggles expressed above.
Approval ratings dropped across all levels of government from January 2022 to now.
- President Joe Biden received a 19% approval rating from those taking our April/May 2024 poll. That figure was three percentage points lower than the 22% who told us he was doing a good job in early 2022.
- Vice President Kamala Harris’s approval rating was 14%, down four percentage points from 18% over two years ago.
- Federal Senators were even less popular, as their approval rating was just 11%, down two percentage points from 13%.
- Members of the House of Representatives received an approval rating of only 10%, down four percentage points.
- Governors had the highest approval ratings of any politicians, at 29%, but that represented a five-percentage-point decrease from 34% in early 2022.
- Local Representatives generated a 27% approval rating, down a remarkable 22 percentage points from 49% in 2022.
Naturally, these questions led to what many are most curious about – who small business owners say they will vote for in the 2024 presidential election in November.
SMB Owners' 2024 Presidential Voting Intentions
When we asked whom SMB owners plan to vote for in November – Joseph Biden or Donald Trump – here’s how the totals added up.
We also compared these results to a poll we ran in March/April of 2020 and noticed several shifts over the past four years:
- 60% say they intend to vote for Donald Trump this November, and that’s two percentage points lower than the 62% supporting him in March/April of 2020.
- 22% plan to vote for our current president Joe Biden. That figure is down eight percentage points from 30% in 2020.
- 13% say they’re supporting a candidate outside of the two major parties. That figure was up 10 percentage points from 3% in 2020.
- And 5% say they’re not sure yet how they’ll vote in November, a statistic that’s the same as what respondents told us in 2020.
Trump's popularity among this group remained high though it dipped a bit over the past four years. That said, it's interesting that 60% say they'll vote for him in November 2024, but only 37% now identify as Republicans.
These results indicate that Independents, as well as other voters shunning parties all together, could be surprisingly powerful forces in November, if the trends mirror the emotions of 30 million+ small business owners across the country.
Shifting Away From Partisanship
It’s no surprise to see that the largest group of people taking this poll identify as Republicans at 37%, which obviously gives Trump an advantage in this survey.
But, to put this in its proper perspective, many small business owners are more financially focused than the general populace, since their livelihoods depend on the businesses they run.
Entrepreneurs often perceive Democratic policies as promoting "big government," which they generally oppose. This includes policies and regulations that can diminish SMB owners' margins and their overall ability to make a living, as other aspects of this poll revealed.
However, there's another major trend emerging from this new data that's very noteworthy -- the percentages of poll participants identifying with a major party has decreased substantially over the past four years, as you can see in the next chart.
And the percentage of small business owners saying they're Republicans has dropped by 10 percentage points from 47% in 2020 to 37% in 2024, the most significant decrease across all categories.
Less dramatic declines were seen among other groups.
- The percentage of Democrats among small business owners dropped, too, in our poll, from 20% in 2020, down six percentage points to just 14% today.
- Even those identifying as Independents slid from 25% four years ago to 19% in 2024.
- The percentage of Libertarians also declined from 3% to 1%.
- But the category of voters unaffiliated with any party has jumped 15 percentage points from 4% in 2020 to 19% in 2024. This represents the most significant increase from 2020.
- And those selecting either “prefer not to say” or “other” went up from 1% in 2020 to 10% in 2024 -- another big lift.
If you’d like more details from Alignable’s Spring 2024 Political Report, or you’d like to arrange an interview with our CEO Eric Groves, our researchers or select small business owners, please contact me at chuck@alignable.com.
To review past poll results, go here or to the Alignable Research Center.
About The Alignable Research Center
Alignable is the largest online business networking platform for small businesses in the U.S. and Canada with 9 million+ members.
We established our research center in early March 2020, to track and report the impact of the Coronavirus on small businesses, and to monitor recovery efforts, informing the media, policymakers, and our members.
About Alignable
Alignable.com is the network where business owners come together. Whether you're connecting locally, meeting peers in your industry, or finding a catalyst who will introduce you to their network, Alignable is where business owners connect and change their business trajectory.
Comments (1-10)
We don't want to see politics on this site. That's all we see everywhere and it's getting old. Please keep Alignable free from that - It's so refreshing when we can go to a site where that isn't shoved in our faces.
Thank you for sharing. There IS room for discussion on the topic of politics, because if you haven't noticed, small business is being crushed by the tag team that is otherwise known as big business and government!
Everything they do, makes it harder on, and more expensive for, small business.
I'll unfortunately disagree with most. Neither Trump (Israel) nor Biden (China) work for the interests of the American people. Both are selected, not elected. For 50 years, our government has gone from 2 BILLION in debt to 35+ TRILLION. TRILLIONS have been lost with no accountability, and NONE of the politicians speak the whole truth. The problem is, the entire system is owned by BIG MONEY, and it's not a system based on TRUTH and our REPUBLIC. Special interests have taken over our government. Billions of our dollars fund other country's wars, while we get invaded, and our vet's walk the streets homeless. How long before we start a convention of states, and get ALL these losers out, IMHO. They are ALL horrible at managing OUR money, they wage war after war, for yes I'll say it...money, oil, land and lies. There is no easy choice, because the system is rigged...they play BOTH sides, and neither side isn't bought and paid, either by China, big pharma, Israel or SOMEONE.
Easy. The choice between a man who knows how the world works and diplomacy or a man who only does what benefits himself, lies and never has any proof of what he says he did or will do. He does not care how the country fits into the rest of the world and his recent guilty verdicts show he lies every time he opens his mouth.
I'd be interested in seeing how the survey was constructed. Because I can't imagine any ethical business owner choosing to do business with anyone whose business acumen relies on fraudulent actions. Never mind turning over the checkbooks, the keys to the building, and giving them a free pass to do whatever to whomever.
Of course, it's also possible that Alignable's membership has politically shifted to one party over another. We saw a migration away from the dominant platforms in the last few years. Did that happen here?
What nonsense. What is it about actual news that people aren't absorbing. Trump is a con artist, a thief, a rapist, a fraud, a wanna be dictator who will demolish the democratic system in the USA. The right wing agenda will absolutely destroy free speech, the department of education, the judicial system and any accountability for criminals like him. MY god the guy has just been convicted of fraud. What more do you want? Honestly.
Why is Alignable getting into the business of politics?
Well put, but we are concerned with how things have turned around since our current administration has taken office, and the decline of more than just the economy. I seriously disagree with anyone who is inclined to think that we are doing okay. Maybe things could be worse compared to the rest of the world. But during the previous administration, we were doing better than great, and our economy was thriving as never before. Unless you are a multi-millionaire, these past 3.5 years have been extremely hard, especially on the working middle class and under. Look at the billions of dollars this administration is shelling out to the 10 million Illegals that have invaded our Country! And I believe statistics show that the job growth is just people going back to work after covid. Just my opinion.
I think most of us realize the executive branch of the US fed govt (let alone our president) does not control money supply, interest rates, nor worldwide supply-demand for oil (and subsequent costs of fuel). What may not be common knowledge is the US economy + relative inflation since end of COVID compared to rest of world has been extraordinary. And that in 2024, we have historically low unemployment (below 5.69% avg), job growth, typical/avg inflation, and the record-breaking stock markets. We are either lucky or are doing something right. Perhaps both.
Do we not get enough of this on TV 24/7?