Small Business Owners Report Revenue Losses

The U.S. inflation rate has been dropping in 2024, but small businesses (SMBs) are still dealing with its effects.

According to Alignable's Summer Revenue Report, 73% of small businesses are generating less income in 2024 compared to 2023, marking a new high for 2024. In addition, 51% of these businesses earned half or less than their previous year's monthly revenue in July, up 4 percentage points from June and 9 percentage points from March.

Inflation is growing as the top small business concern with 37% of SMBs citing it as their biggest worry. That's an increase of 13 percentage points since December 2023. Beyond that, high interest rates and increasing rent payments continue to shrink margins and hinder growth, and 41% couldn't pay rent in full and on time in July while 52% experienced rent spikes.

More than 80% of SMBs in manufacturing, beauty salons, and real estate are reporting significant revenue declines.

Virginia, California, New York, and Arizona report that more than 75% of their SMB owners taking the poll are experiencing revenue losses in 2024. In several other states, at least 50% of SMB owners polled are falling short when it comes to 2024 revenue, including Illinois, Colorado, and Maryland.

The report's findings are based on 6,155 responses from randomly selected small business owners surveyed in July. That information was combined with input from more than 54,000 other entrepreneurs over the past year.