What\u0092s behind the setback? For tiny firms, it is the lack of customers. \u0093Poor sales\u0094 was cited as the top problem among small-business owners. For consumers, job jitters and the lack of vigor in the economy are contributing to the gloom. Households also think their personal finances are worsening.<\/p>\n
Uncertainty breeds inertia. Consumers won\u0092t spend if they aren\u0092t sure they\u0092ll have a paycheck down the road. And businesses won\u0092t hire or expand operations if they don\u0092t expect sales growth. Both consumer demand and business investment are needed for the U.S. recovery to gain traction.<\/p>\n
So far, Washington and its stimulus policies haven’t done much to break the doldrums. Recent surveys show both consumers and small business owners are disappointed in government policies or don\u0092t expect them to help much.<\/p>\n
The latest readings from consumers and small business owners indicate economic sentiment isn’t improving, despite signs of a factory rebound and less gloom on the labor front. On Tuesday, the National Federation of Independent Business said its optimism index for small business owners fell back in February to its December reading of 88.0, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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