Businesses, Consumers Worried About Inflation, Supply Chain, Worker Shortage

At least two new surveys indicate that inflation, supply chain challenges, and the country’s worker shortage are very much on the minds of U.S. businesses and consumers.

The first survey, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and MetLife’s fourth quarter Small Business Index (SBI), found that while small business owners are increasingly optimistic about the future of their businesses, they also expect continued headwinds from labor shortages, inflation, and supply chain disruptions.

Specifically, the survey found:

• 77 percent of small business owners are optimistic about the future of their business.
• Sixty-one percent of small business owners said the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically disrupted their supply chain and 55 percent said worker shortages have done so. As a result, 63 percent of business owners have had to alter their supply chains in the past six months and 47 percent said these disruptions make it difficult to keep up with customer demand.
• 71 percent of small business owners said rising prices have had a significant impact on their business in the past year.
• About two in five (38 percent) small business owners said they plan to hire in the coming year while 42 percent said they plan to invest in their businesses. Those numbers were up 10 and 13 percentage points, respectively, from the SBI survey taken in previous quarter.

Read the full results of the SBI here.

The second survey, from CNN, asked Americans about their feelings regarding the nation’s economy. As CNN reported, when asked to rate the severity of seven issues affecting the economy recently, 80 percent of Americans cited the negative impacts of the rising cost of food and other everyday items while 79 percent cited the disruption in the nation’s supply chain. More than three-quarters (77 percent) of respondents said the rising cost of housing is a major problem for the nation’s economy, and more than two-thirds (67 percent) said they are worried about labor shortages.

Americans also want more government action on these issues. For example, 72 percent said the U.S. government is doing too little to reduce inflation while 70 percent said it is not doing enough to relieve disruptions in the supply chain.

Read CNN’s full survey here.