Quarterly Survey Finds Small Business Owners Are Rallying Behind Tax Reform
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J. and SAN MATEO, CA, December 11, 2017 — CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, and SurveyMonkey, the world's leading People Powered Data platform, today announced the results of their quarterly CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey. Each quarter, CNBC and SurveyMonkey poll over 2,000 small business owners aiming to measure the vitality of the American economy as well as the view from Main Street on jobs, taxes and other hot topics. In addition to measuring small business confidence nationwide, the large sample size gives CNBC the power to uncover trends by geographic region and among specific small business cohorts.
Key findings from the Q4 CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey include:
- Strong support for tax reform: 55% of small business owners support the GOP tax plan making its way through Congress
- Support rises to 73% among firms with 50 or more employees
- When asked what they're most likely do with the extra money from a tax cut, only 10% of small business owners say they'll raise employee wages, and even fewer – a mere 5% - say they'll use it to increase employee headcount
- Trump gains support: 53% of small business owners approve of the President's job performance, up from 51% in Q3
- President Trump saw a HUGE increase in support among owners of C-Corporations, as approval among C-corporations jumped almost 20 points, from 48% in Q3 to 67% in Q4 - This is most likely because they see themselves as major beneficiaries of tax reform
- 81% of those who expect a tax cut in 2018 approve of the President's job performance
- 79% of those who expect a tax increase in 2018 disapprove of the President's job performance
CNBC Small Business Reporter Kate Rogers will reveal the results of the CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey today, Monday, December 11th throughout CNBC's Business Day programming. For more information on the survey including the full results and methodology and in-depth articles, go to: http://www.cnbc.com/cnbc-survey-monkey-small-business-survey/.
In addition, SurveyMonkey created a unique Small Business Confidence Index (SBCI), which is a 100 point score based on responses to eight key questions. The fourth-quarter SBCI has an overall value of 57, indicating that small business owners are more optimistic than pessimistic about the direction their business will go in the next 12 months; this is unchanged from the third quarter.
The CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey was conducted using SurveyMonkey's online platform from November 20-December 4, 2017 among a national sample of 2,043 self-identified small business owners ages 18 and up. Respondents for this survey were selected from the nearly three million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day. The modeled error estimate for this survey is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Data for this quarter have been weighted to be representative of small business owners nationally, according to business characteristics from the Small Business Administration's 2013 Statistics of U.S. Businesses and owner characteristics from the Census Bureau's 2012 Survey of Business Owners.
*CNBC/Survey Monkey additionally surveyed 10,392 individuals who do not own small businesses. Data for questions asked of the general population have been weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography using the Census Bureau's American Community Survey to reflect the demographic composition of the United States age 18 and over.
For more information contact:
CNBC
Jennifer Dauble
201-735-4721
jennifer.dauble@nbcuni.com
SurveyMonkey
Irina Efremova
415-860-9844
irinae@surveymonkey.com
About CNBC:
With CNBC in the U.S., CNBC in Asia Pacific, CNBC in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and CNBC World, CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news and provides real-time financial market coverage and business information to more than 409 million homes worldwide, including more than 91 million households in the United States and Canada. CNBC also provides daily business updates to 400 million households across China. The network's 15 live hours a day of business programming in North America (weekdays from 4:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. ET) is produced at CNBC's global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and includes reports from CNBC News bureaus worldwide. CNBC at night features a mix of new reality programming, CNBC's highly successful series produced exclusively for CNBC and a number of distinctive in-house documentaries.
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About SurveyMonkey:
Founded in 1999 and based in San Mateo, California, SurveyMonkey is the world's leading People Powered Data platform enabling curious individuals and companies – including 100% of the Fortune 500 – to have conversations at scale with the people who matter most. Whether it's a trend in the market, opinions of customers, or voices of employees, SurveyMonkey turns them into actionable data. As a pioneer of the industry, SurveyMonkey is a trusted platform for people to express their true feelings and opinions so organizations can uncover the 'why' behind the data. SurveyMonkey's 700+ employees throughout North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific are dedicated to powering the curious. For more information about SurveyMonkey, please visit: surveymonkey.com.