24% of business owners believe inflation has peaked, CNBC small business survey finds

Welcome back to power lunch, stock market investors, the Fed. Everyone wants to know if inflation has peaked. We asked small business owners for what they’re seeing. Kate Rogers joins us with the data of the CNBC SurveyMonkey Small Business Confidence Index. And Kate, it sounds like inflation has not peaked in the minds of the majority of these small business owners. That’s right, Leslie. So inflation remains a sticky and top issue for our small business owners. According to our latest CNBC SurveyMonkey Small Business Confidence Index, only one in four now say that inflation has peaked. That’s down from nearly a third last quarter. Meanwhile, 3/4 say they still expect inflation to continue to rise. That’s also up from 69% last quarter. More than one in three said there that inflation, rather, is their biggest threat to business. Right now. That is three times as many who say consumer demand, labor shortages, supply chain or interest rates are their top threats to business. Also there seems to be less confidence this quarter in the feds ability to control inflation. 31% saying they are very confident. That’s down from 35% last quarter. But on the whole some good news. Confidence is holding stable right now for owners at a score of 47 out of 100. That’s on par with last quarter score and up one point from the same time last year. There’s good news here as well. There’s still economic optimism for owners, 27% saying that the economy is excellent or good. That’s similar to 28% last quarter and even higher than 21% who said that same thing the same time last year. Maybe maybe we have these results or maybe we don’t when you look at inflation and the number of or the percentage of people who say it’s their number one concern. Do we know whether it’s different region by region or different industry and by industry or anything like that? Or do we just know that that’s what they’re concerned about? We just know it’s a top concern, Tyler. It’s a great question and maybe we’ll ask it next quarter. Yeah, be interesting to know if people in the construction trades are seeing more or the restaurant trades are seeing more inflation than people in general basic retail or or whatever. Certainly, I think in talking to different small business owners around the country, everyone’s feeling it in some capacity, whether it’s having to raise prices, whether it’s consumers pulling back a little bit, whether it’s paying more for materials or having to raise your own prices. Like, there’s just so much of it that’s touching each part of the economy in varying ways. So I think everyone’s feeling it to some extent. Yeah, it sounds like though, they’re still relatively confident and obviously this is an election year, so. Kind of given what’s going to happen in November, how does that factor into the sentiment from the small business owners? Yeah, what is going to happen in November, Leslie? So something we just talked about. Top of mind here for the election as well, Inflation 3 and five of our small business owners said that inflation and economic growth are their top issues when deciding who to vote for this year. Those come in ahead of other issues including tax policy, safety and crime, foreign policy and health care costs. So a lot of eyes on both inflation in the economy right now. All right, Kate. Thank you very much. Kate Rogers reporting from San Francisco.