NFIB Weekly News

Forbes (1/20, Rowan) continued coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to issue a stay of OSHA’s vaccine mandate. Forbes quoted NFIB Legal Center Executive Director Karen Harned saying, “As small businesses try to recover after almost two years of significant business disruptions, the last thing they need is a mandate that would cause more business challenges.”

Harned was also quoted on NBC News (1/14) as saying small business owners “sighed a big sigh of relief yesterday. We’re already hearing from members that omicron is impacting them…Employees aren’t coming to work if they’re sick. As a result, that’s made the labor shortage even worse. This will help prevent a pile-on.”

Small Business Trends (1/14, Guta) quoted Harned: “As small businesses try to recover after almost two years of significant business disruptions, the last thing they need is a mandate that would cause more business challenges.”

The Oklahoma Journal Record (1/12, McNutt) reported on NFIB’s Federal Update webinar, saying, “The Build Back Better Act is wounded but not dead and the final version could have serious implications for small businesses. The National Federation of Independent Business highlighted some major concerns during a webinar Wednesday.” NFIB Federal Government Relations Manager Courtney Titus Brooks was quoted saying, “While a lot of very, very problematic tax increases dropped out, we still have a very significant one we are pushing back on.” The Journal Record added, “That is a 3.8% tax increase on active business income over $400,000 for single filers and on over $500,000 for those filing jointly. The threshold is only $13,000 for businesses held in a trusts.” NFIB Vice President of Federal Government Relations Kevin Kuhlman was quoted saying, “Proposed mandates in the Build Back Better Act also have been reduced, including an expansive 12-week paid family and medical leave that was reduced to four weeks per year.”

The Wall Street Journal (1/12, Guilford, Subscription Publication) highlighted NFIB’s December SBET survey, saying, “In December, some 49% of small businesses said they planned to raise prices in the next three months, on net, according to the” NFIB. The Center Square (IL) (1/12, Harper, Square) quoted NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg saying, “Small businesses unfortunately saw a disappointing December jobs report, with staffing issues continuing to impact their ability to be fully productive. Inflation is at the highest level since the 1980s and is having an overwhelming impact on owners’ ability to manage their businesses.”

On NTD News (1/11), Dunkelberg was quoted saying, “The index only went up by half of a point…We’ve got record-high percentages of owners with job openings trying to hire, trying to get inventory, doing all those good things to help the economy and improve employment but…the net percent expecting the economy to be better is -34%.”

The Washington Post (1/13, A1, Barnes) reported last Thursday that “the Supreme Court on Thursday stopped the Biden administration’s vaccination-or-testing requirement for the nation’s largest employers.” The Post says, “The court has been supportive of state requirements targeting the pandemic, but skeptical of broad federal responses. All six of the court’s conservatives said Congress had not given the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) power to impose such a sweeping requirement in workplaces across the nation.”

NBC News (1/13, Williams) reported that NFIB Small Business Legal Center Executive Director Karen Harned “called the Supreme Court ruling a ‘welcome relief’ to businesses struggling to keep afloat during the pandemic. She expressed optimism that with the OSHA rule now halted, the lower courts will proceed to find the regulation illegal.” Harned was quoted saying, “As small businesses try to recover after almost two years of significant business disruptions, the last thing they need is a mandate that would cause more business challenges.”

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index (1/10) increased slightly to a 98.9 reading in December, up 0.5 points from November. Twenty-two percent of small business owners reported inflation as the single most important problem encountered in their business operations. NFIB says price-raising activities has reached levels not seen since the early 1980s. NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg was quoted saying, “Small businesses unfortunately saw a disappointing December jobs report, with staffing issues continuing to impact their ability to be fully productive. ... Inflation is at the highest level since the 1980’s and is having an overwhelming impact on owners’ ability to manage their businesses.”

The New York Times (1/22, A1, Smialek, Swanson) reported the rising prices “bedeviling consumers, businesses and policymakers worldwide have prompted a heated debate in Washington about how much of today’s rapid inflation is a result of policy choices in the United States and how much stems from global factors tied to the pandemic, like snarled supply chains.” The Times added that at a time when “stubbornly rapid price gains are weighing on consumer confidence and creating a political liability for President Biden, White House officials have repeatedly blamed international forces for high inflation, including factory shutdowns in Asia and overtaxed shipping routes.” The Times reported while economists “agree that prices are rising as a result of shutdowns and supply chain woes, they say that America’s decision to flood the economy with stimulus money helped to send consumer spending into overdrive, exacerbating those global trends.”

Bloomberg (1/22, Curran) reported the omicron surge “is complicating the recovery for a world economy that continues to be wracked by supply chain chaos, worker absenteeism and faltering assembly lines.” Already, the World Bank “lowered its growth outlook and” International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Friday warned 2022 will be like “navigating an obstacle course” for policymakers. However, “U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she doesn’t expect” the variant to delay the country’s recovery, and early data from “the U.K. and Canada shows shorter duration waves, faster descents from peaks and lower death rates than the delta variant.”

Reuters (1/16, Brooks) reported that small businesses across the US “are besieged on three fronts: deepening supply chain issues; periodic staffing shortages; and fewer customers showing up in some areas, fearing the Omicron spike in COVID-19 cases.” The Federal Reserve’s “latest collection of anecdotes about the state of the economy from businesses, labor groups and others nationwide...show[s] that the fast-spreading Omicron variant was exacerbating difficulties, especially for hiring and inflation.” Reuters adds, “Though federal aid and the economy’s overall recovery have kept failure and bankruptcy rates for small businesses far lower than expected, day-to-day management has become a challenge. Census surveys conducted since early in the pandemic show concerns steadily shifting from dwindling cash reserves and a hunt for financing to challenges with supply chains and rising costs.”

The AP (1/16, Anderson) reported higher prices “are yet another challenge thrown at business owners by the global pandemic. The unpredictability of shipping, labor and the coronavirus itself have created an environment where owners are often left guessing about when products might arrive and how much they’ll cost.” According to the Labor Department “prices at the wholesale level rose a record 9.7% in December from a year ago. ... In response, owners are raising prices, cutting staff hours, dropping some goods and services and nixing free shipping in a delicate balancing act. But with low visibility into how long the higher inflation will last, some owners are increasingly worried about keeping their doors open in the long run.”

Bloomberg (1/12) reported, “U.S. consumer prices soared last year by the most in nearly four decades, sapping the purchasing power of American families and setting the stage for the Federal Reserve to begin hiking interest rates as soon as March.”

The AP (1/12, Rugaber) reported that the Labor Department revealed the consumer price index rose 7% in December, while “the measure of inflation that excludes volatile food and gas prices jumped 5.5% in December, the fastest such increase since 1991. Inflation rose 0.5% overall from November, down from 0.8% the previous month.” According to the AP, “Rising prices have wiped out the healthy pay increases that many Americans have been receiving, making it harder for households, especially lower-income families, to afford basic expenses.” Axios (1/12, Irwin) noted that “prices rose more slowly in December than earlier in 2021, with the 0.5% surge down from 0.8% in November and 0.9% in October.” However, Axios adds that “an 0.5% monthly inflation rate, if sustained for a full year, would work out to 6.2% annual inflation, still far above the 2% the Federal Reserve aims for.”

Small Business Trends (1/20) discussed how “WiFi marketing” can help small businesses. Small Business Trends said, “WiFi marketing works with what’s often called guest Wi-Fi. It’s where a small business offers a free connection in retail locations and other places. Then, they use that connection for marketing campaigns like promotions and messages.” Small Business Trends added that offering WiFi increases customer satisfaction and makes them more likely to spend, and a coordinated marketing campaign helps obtain customer data analytics in return.

Digiday (1/13, Monllos) reported that small business owners have been able to post “organic content” to TikTok “that goes viral and helps boost their business.” Businesses and marketers “have focused on [TikTok], often as a way to diversify their social media mix, using organic and paid strategies to get in front of the more than 29 million monthly active users on the platform. At the same time, small businesses have started to do the same, according to Danielle Johnson, TikTok’s head of SMB account management, North America.” Digiday added, “It’s unclear how much of TikTok’s ad revenue is made up of SMBs as the platform declined to share those figures. That said, the platform is looking to continue to beef up its offering for SMBs with education series as well as working closely with brands when they begin to spend on the platform to continue to improve their experience on TikTok.”

The E-Commerce Times (1/5) reported, “Shopping on social media platforms is growing at a torrid pace — three times faster than traditional e-commerce platforms — and is on a pace to reach US$1.2 trillion globally by 2025, according to a study released Tuesday by” Accenture. Accenture Managing Director Kevin Collins said, “Like many internet trends, it will start with a younger generation, but it’s not going to stay there. ... We have TikTok moms now...and Gen X’s and boomers have been coming to TikTok over the last year and are really starting to make some noise and do some really interesting things on the platform. I think social commerce is going to go the same way.”

Business 2 Community (1/5) featured tips to help small business owners reach target audiences on Facebook. B2C discusses dynamic product ads, multi-product ads, and conversion-tracking pixels, among other tools.

In Forbes (12/29, Schroeder), contributor Bernhard Schroeder advised small business owners and startups to initially focus on serving a “niche set of customers” within a larger market. Schroeder wrote, “The key to establishing your own niche market is research. By diligently researching niche markets, you can determine what unique segments already exist, and explore where new ones could be successfully developed based on industry or customers trends. Once you’ve found a potential niche market, it’s essential to think about whether it can become profitable via a current or new business model.” Schroeder added that the benefits to targeting a niche market are “reduced competition initially,” focused marketing efforts, product or service differentiation, and “time to build your brand loyalty.”

While the Wall Street Journal (1/22, Cambon, Mollica, Subscription Publication) reported American workers are enjoying rising wages and benefiting from the tight labor market, the Washington Post (1/22, A1, Bhattarai) said that “in an unexpected twist, the same strong economic recovery that is emboldening workers is also driving up inflation, leaving most Americans with less spending power than they had a year ago.” The Post reported that average hourly wages rose 4.7 percent last year, but “overall wages fell 2.4 percent on average for all workers, when adjusted for inflation, according to the Labor Department.” The Post added the leisure and hospitality industry was “the only sector where pay increases outpaced inflation last year,” as “workers there saw a 14 percent average raise from about $17 an hour to more than $19.50, according to an analysis of Labor Department data,” but those workers “generally make the lowest hourly wages of any sector.”

In an editorial, the Washington Post (1/15) admonished America for not mandating paid sick leave, especially when many must choose between going to work with COVID or going without pay. While 95% of those with the highest incomes have paid leave, that drops to 35% among the lowest paid workers, many of whom are front-line workers in restaurants and grocery stores. The Post hoped Congress will “require all companies to offer paid sick leave.”

In an editorial, the Wall Street Journal (1/11, Subscription Publication) lauded a decision by the City Council Portland, Maine to lift a state of emergency that resulted in the city’s minimum wage rising from $13 to $19.50 on Jan. 1. The Journal said the Council made the decision after hearing from small business owners about the impact the increase would have.

Bloomberg (1/7, Pickert) reported the Labor Department announced last Friday that the US unemployment rate “fell below 4% and wages jumped last month, adding to evidence of a tight labor market that’s expected to help spur Federal Reserve interest-rate liftoff as soon as March despite disappointing payroll growth.”

The AP (1/7, Rugaber) reported that the unemployment rate “fell in December to a healthy 3.9% – a pandemic low – even as employers added a modest 199,000 jobs, evidence that they are struggling to fill jobs with many Americans reluctant to return to the workforce.” The AP also reported, “The drop in the jobless rate, from 4.2% in November, indicated that many more people found work last month. Indeed, despite the slight hiring gain reported by businesses, 651,000 more workers said they were employed in December compared with November.” The AP added that “wages also rose sharply in December, with average hourly pay jumping 4.7% compared with a year ago.”

Bloomberg (1/4, Rockeman) reported a record 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in November, according to the Department of Labor’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) released on Tuesday.

CNBC (1/4, Cox) reported the November increase “represented an 8.9% increase from October and broke September’s high-water mark of 4.36 million. As a percentage of the workforce, the quits rate of 3% matched September’s mark.”