| Every year, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), which bills itself as the state’s largest small-business advocacy organization, polls its members on their major concerns. The group boasts 15,000 members in Washington and 600,000 nationwide.
According to the most recent poll, almost seven in ten business owners ranked our state’s small-business climate fair to poor. Forty-four percent of small-business owners responding to the survey ranked the climate as “Fair,” and 24 percent thought it “Poor.” Only 27 percent rated the small-business climate “Good,” with a minuscule 1.9 ranking it “Excellent.”
Carolyn Logue, NFIB/Washington’s state director, noted, “The cost of complying with more than 100,000 pages of state regulations is the primary reason Washington small-business owners maintain such a dim view about their growth prospects and solvency. We are unique among all 50 states in ranking regulations as the top concern of small-business owners; health care costs are usually first elsewhere else in the nation.”
The top concern of small-business owners was environmental regulations, while health insurance availability and costs were a close second. Federal taxes came in third. Rounding out the top ten, in order, were property taxes, B&O taxes, workers’ compensation costs, liability insurance costs, hiring quality employees, safety and health regulations, and unemployment insurance taxes.
The survey also found that 41 percent of small-business owners plan to increase their prices as a result in the boost in the state’s minimum wage; 27 percent plan to decrease the number of part-time employees; and 26 percent plan to forgo hiring new employees.
“This confirms what we have long known, but lawmakers insist on denying, that increases in the minimum wage are inflationary and stunt job growth,” said Logue. |
