Sentiment among business owners was weak in October, and much of entrepreneurs' pessimism was tied to the political climate in Washington and the problem-plagued rollout of the health exchanges.
Small business optimism fell from 93.9 to 91.6 on the National Federation of Independent Business' Index, the survey found. Additionally, when respondents were asked if they considered the present to be a good time to hire people and expand their business, nearly 70 percent of entrepreneurs said it was less than ideal.
Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist for the NFIB, indicated that the poor numbers weren't a surprise in light of the political climate on Capitol Hill and the partial government shutdown that lasted more than two weeks.
"Small employers are not fooled by headlines announcing record high stock market indices," said Dunkelberg. "Everyday they live the economic realities of overregulation, increased taxes, weak sales and a government without any direction or plan for the future."
He added that because the budget deadline is Jan. 15 and there's no end in sight regarding all the problems that the health care law has spawned, "we shouldn't expect skies to turn blue anytime soon."
Perhaps because of the flawed rollout, many small business owners have acted quickly to renew their employee benefit plans, even though the mandate was pushed back to 2015. USA Today reported that according to many insurance brokers, 60 to 80 percent of their small business owner clients are renewing their policies for their workers now so that they don't have to deal with the HR compliance issues when the law goes into full effect in January 2015. This is something that not every business owner is able to do, though, as companies with more than 50 employees are prevented from early renewal.
