Recently released, Alignable’s August Revenue & Rent Report reveals that:
- 50% of small business owners are only making half or less of the income they earned monthly prior to the pandemic. This represents the most significant surge in revenue problems witnessed all year — up 10 percentage points from 40% of SMBs in July.
- And the issues are even more daunting for new businesses, as 53% of SMBs founded after March 2020 are earning only half or less of what they generated a year ago.
These findings are based on a survey of 4,898 randomly selected small business owners polled from 8/5/23 to 8/30/23, as well as 35,000+ responses from previous 2023 studies. Other highlights include:
- Sectors like gyms/fitness (64%), beauty salons (58%), real estate (55%), retail (50%), & restaurants (49%) are especially affected.
- Illinois stands as the hardest-hit state, with a startling 61% of local businesses earning half or less of their monthly, pre-COVID revenues. This figure surged by 24 percentage points from July.
- Other states with a high percentage of SMBs struggling to generate revenues include: MA, NY, CA, MI, MN, AZ, MD, VA, FL, & CO.
- Given the revenue challenges, along with the effects of cumulative inflation, high interest rates, rent spikes, and more, 39% of all SMBs were unable to pay their August rent in full and on time, up 2 percentage points from July.
