The National Federation of Independent Business’ (NFIB’s) latest index of small-business optimism released Tuesday found that optimism “technically rose” 0.7 points to 95.7 in July with “little change” in the 10 index components.
The outlook for expansion and business conditions components accounted for the small gain in the index. And even with the improvement, those components “still remain historically low,” the NFIB said in a news release.
Among the components, “expect economy to improve” rose four points and “now a good time to expand” increased three points compared to their readings last month, according to the NFIB data.
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The slight changes in those two components represent the “positive side” of this month’s index, William (Bill) Dunkelberg, chief economist for the NFIB, said in the release.
“However, capital-spending reports continue to remain mediocre, spending plans are weak, and inventories are too large, with more owners reporting sales trends deteriorating than improving. As long as these stats continue to hold, the small business half of the economy will continue to not be able to pull its weight,” said Dunkelberg.
The NFIB bases its report on the responses of more than 1,600 randomly sampled small businesses in its membership, which it surveyed throughout the month of July.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
