82 Percent of Small Business Owners Say They are Unaffected by the Shutdown

Washington, DC (January 22, 2019) – Only 7 percent of small business owners say their business is seriously affected by the shutdown, but a vast majority say the news coverage of the shutdown is slanted against President Trump and Republicans, a new Job Creators Network national survey finds.

“There’s no doubt that this is disruptive to the federal employees who are missing paychecks, but the impact on small business nationally is still fairly limited,” said Alfredo Ortiz, President and CEO of the Job Creators Network. “On the other hand. almost everyone who is following the story thinks the coverage is biased.”

According to the survey, only 4.2 percent say the news coverage of the shutdown has been fair. 93 percent say the coverage is biased against President Trump and Republicans. Only 2.5 percent say the coverage slants against Democrats.

The survey also found that 82 percent of small business owners say they are unaffected by the shutdown, so far. Roughly 7 percent say they are “very affected,” and a similar percentage say they are “somewhat affected.”

“We don’t want to minimize the problems this is causing for some small businesses and federal employees, but it certainly isn’t the national economic disaster that the news coverage makes it seem,” said Ortiz. “The effects of the shutdown are so far confined to government contractors and businesses that serve communities with large concentrations of government employees.”

Nearly 98 percent of respondents say they are aware of the shutdown. According to Ortiz, however, the small business community doesn’t see the coverage as even-handed.

“Small business owners believe almost universally that the news media is failing to present the story in a balanced way,” said Ortiz. 

The data comes from a survey of 427 Job Creators Network members who are small business owners from January 16-22, 2019.