Over the past three years, businesses have taken blow after blow: a pandemic, the highest inflation since the 1980s, supply chain disruptions, a serious labor shortage and, now, talks of a recession that may or may not already be here. The worries of dealing with those and other challenges jumped out in a recent survey of entrepreneurs from across the country by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said Holly Wade, the organization's director of research.
A lot of it has to do with energy costs like electricity and gasoline — and that's eased up a bit, thankfully. But other core products that they have to buy are still increasing, and they are having a hard time absorbing and passing on those costs. One of the challenges that they have is with the benefit side of compensation, like offering health insurance. It's very expensive, and so small business owners have historically had a lower rate of offering health insurance than larger companies. It's all because of cost limitations.