With America’s small business owner confidence soaring after the election, Illinois’ small business advocates said they’re waiting for the same effect in Illinois.
Shortly after Donald Trump won the presidency in November, the National Federation of Independent Business took a pulse of their member companies. NFIB bifurcated their monthly survey in November to reflect the election results. They saw dramatic increases in expected sales, hiring and wide expectation of a better regulatory business climate once the results were in. The “Expected better business conditions” category was the biggest mover in the survey, rising from a net -6 percent to a net 38 percent, a 44-point spike.
“If higher optimism can be sustained, I expect that in the coming months we’ll see an increase in business activity, such as hiring and expanding,” NFIB chief economist Bill Dunkelberg said.
“They see some stability,” NFIB’s Illinois Director Mark Grant said. “They have a lot more confidence about the direction of the country. They see the president-elect as being far more business-friendly, especially for ‘Main Street.’”
Grant said Illinois’ small businesses would react similarly to reforms that would cut red tape and help them grow.
“If the state addressed simple things like lawsuit reform, workers compensation, and even a property tax freeze, you would see people investing back into their businesses and being able to afford higher pay and salaries for their workers,” Grant said.
Gov. Bruce Rauner has been negotiating with Democrats that control the state legislature to implement a number of pro-small business reforms but has received pushback from lawmakers that say the measures would harm workers.
NFIB has been collecting results of their small business optimism index since 1986. They measure things like expectation to hire, borrow money, sell product, build up their inventory and expand.
