Small business owners more miserable

Small business owners have lost even more confidence in the economy, according to a survey released Monday by Discover Financial Services.

The survey, conducted this month by Rassmussen Reports, shows that 73% of small business owners are taking home less pay than they did previously. That's an increase over June, when 69% said they were paying themselves less.

Forty-five percent of owners surveyed said economic conditions for their businesses had worsened over the last month. That's a slight increase from June, when 43% said conditions had worsened.

The Discover survey is based on responses from 750 small business owners nationwide.

-- Sharon Bernstein

Comments

[Gary Stanley]

Unfortunately, the results you quote are not statistically significant. The error rate on a random sample of 750 people is +/- 3.6%. The two percent difference (45% vs. 43%) is not statistically significant based on the sample. So we can conclude there is no difference between the two months. The other percent is a 4% difference. We are not sure how the 73% and 69% were rounded. If we round the error rate to +/- 4% then there is no statistical difference between the months.

[Bruce DuBose]

Even if thereis no difference between the two months, the figures are no less shocking!