Small business confidence drops to a low as U.S.China trade war rattles Main Street

Small business confidence has dropped to a level not seen since 2017, matching the all-time low since CNBC and SurveyMonkey began taking the pulse of Main Street in a quarterly survey three years ago. Business confidence is now lower than it was amid the major stock market sell-off of late 2018 and equals the way entrepreneurs felt in late 2017, when the tax cuts package and its provisions for small business owners were in doubt. Small business owners are undoubtedly better off now than they were the last time the confidence index was this low. Over half of business owners in the CNBC SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey for the third quarter of 2019 say that business conditions are good. That number was 13 percentage points lower (55% vs. 44%) at the time of the 2017 low. Fifty-eight percent say they expect revenue to increase in the next 12 months, and Trump’s net approval rating is holding strong, at 57%.