COVID-19, or the coronavirus, has had an enormous negative impact on the U.S. economy. The stock market is hurting, down about 24 percent from the beginning of 2020. In addition, in many places throughout the U.S., non-essential businesses are shut down or forced to work from home. These are some of the major reasons why, 87% of small business owners are struggling due to the coronavirus, according to a nationally representative survey conducted by WalletHub. The survey took a look at how the pandemic has affected business owners’ livelihoods and opinions on various topics.
Help for business owners is on the horizon. Congress recently passed, and President Trump has now signed, a $2 trillion bipartisan stimulus bill to help both businesses and individuals recover from the damage caused by the pandemic. This package will include $500 billion in loans for struggling businesses.
While business owners wait to receive loans, though, they are struggling. Below are additional highlights from WalletHub’s survey, along with a complete description of our methodology.
Key Stats
- Owners worry about failure: 35% of small business owners say their business can only survive for less than three months in current conditions.
- Health comes before money: 79% of small business owners think that minimizing COVID-19 deaths is more important than re-opening the economy.
- Business owners don’t want more restrictions: 60% of small business owners think restrictions placed in response to COVID-19 should stay the same or be relaxed.
- Many business owners feel neglected: 68% of small business owners think that the government is not doing enough to help small business right now.
Survey Methodology
This report reflects the results of a nationally representative online survey of over 200 small business owners.
After all responses were collected, we normalized the data by age, gender and income so the sample would reflect U.S. demographics.
Full Details Overall
| Is your business hurting or benefiting from the coronavirus? | |
|---|---|
| Hurting | 87% |
| Benefiting | 13% |
| How long can your business survive in current conditions? | |
| Less than 3 months | 35% |
| 3-6 months | 30% |
| More than 12 months | 25% |
| 6-12 months | 11% |
| Is the federal government doing enough to help small businesses? | |
| No | 68% |
| Yes | 32% |
| Is the federal government doing too much to help big businesses? | |
| Yes | 56% |
| No | 44% |
| Have you laid off any employees as a result of the coronavirus? | |
| No | 67% |
| Yes | 33% |
| Do you plan to lay off any employees as a result of the coronavirus? | |
| No | 64% |
| Yes | 36% |
| Have you furloughed any employees / do you plan to? | |
| No | 65% |
| Yes | 35% |
| Which is more important to you? | |
| Minimizing COVID-19 deaths | 79% |
| Re-opening the economy | 21% |
| How do you rate the restrictions placed in response to COVID-19? | |
| Need more | 40% |
| Sufficient | 38% |
| Need to relax | 21% |
| Will you seek funds from the federal government’s coronavirus relief package? | |
| Yes | 63% |
| No | 37% |
Note: Percentages may not total 100% due to rounding.