Small Business Struggles Point To Three Policy Priorities

Young business survival and growth. Workforce development. Child care.

Those, at least, are my takeaways from new survey data on small businesses. Together with the Small Business Roundtable, Facebook recently released its latest State of Small Business report for the United States. And the National Federation of Independent Business published two new updates from its members.

A topline finding in these surveys is the continuing struggle for many small businesses to stay open, pay the bills, and deal with massive uncertainty. The Facebook report, which provides an update to survey data last collected in April, finds a large jump in pessimism. In December 2020 (when the new survey was fielded), just 37% of closed businesses expected that they would reopen within six months. In…