In another sign of a struggling economy, small businesses are having an increasingly hard time paying rent.
According to Alignable’s November Rent Poll, 41% of US small businesses reported they couldn’t pay their rent in full and on time in November. That was a 4 percentage-point increase from the previous month.
The government response to the coronavirus pandemic has put extraordinary pressure on small businesses. And that pressure is about to increase thanks to yet another government action – minimum wage increases across the US.
According to a recent survey, 48% of small business owners fear they will have to shut down permanently before the end of the year. That was a jump from 42% just two months ago.
Alignable surveyed 9,201 small business owners. Analysts based their results on the answer to two questions.
As pundits and politicians continue to speculate about economic recovery, hundreds of companies large and small are struggling under loads of debt, filing for bankruptcy and closing their doors.
In September, 54 more large companies filed for bankruptcy, according to S&P Global intelligence. A total of 509 companies have gone bankrupt this year as of Oct. 4, exceeding the number of filings during any comparable period since 2010. That was piled on top of the 54 companies that filed for bankruptcy protection in August.
The economy was booming. The stock market was setting records. Then coronavirus came along and governments shut things down to minimize the pandemic. That led to massive layoffs and a nasty recession. But once states open up, things will spring back to life and the economy will go back to being great again.
That’s the mainstream narrative. But it’s not based on reality.
