CNBC And SurveyMonkey Release Latest Quarterly Small Business Survey

CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, and SurveyMonkey, the world's leading People Powered Data platform, today announced the results of their quarterly CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey. Each quarter, CNBC and SurveyMonkey poll over 2,000 small business owners aiming to measure the vitality of the American economy as well as the view from Main Street on jobs, taxes and other hot topics. In addition to measuring small business confidence nationwide, the large sample size gives CNBC the power to uncover trends by geographic region and among specific small business cohorts.

Key findings from the Q1 CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey include:

• 47% percent of small-business owners surveyed say overall business conditions are good, up from 44% in the fourth quarter of 2017.
• 32% of small business owners expect to increase their staff of full-time employees in the next 12 months.
• Small business owners would prefer Washington focus on health care in 2018.
  • 30% of respondents say health care should be Congress and the Trump Administration's first priority this year.
  • This is followed by infrastructure (23%) and immigration (18%).
• Small business owners have seen some impacts of sexual harassment in 2018; however, many have not yet incorporated new training programs:
  • 5% of small business owners say they have fired or suspended employees accused of sexual misconduct since the #MeToo movement began last fall.
  • 7% say they've required their employees to undergo training, 9% have reviewed their policies, and 11% have issued company-wide reminders regarding harassment policies and reporting procedures.
  • 61% have taken no action as a result of the #MeToo movement.

CNBC Small Business Reporter Kate Rogers will reveal the results of the CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey today, Tuesday, February 20th throughout CNBC's Business Day programming. For more information on the survey including the full results and methodology and in-depth articles, go to: https://www.cnbc.com/cnbc-survey-monkey-small-business-survey/.

SurveyMonkey created a unique Small Business Confidence Index (SBCI), which is a 100 point score based on responses to eight key questions. The index is calculated on a scale from 0-100 and is based on the responses to eight key questions. A zero indicates no confidence, and a score of 100 indicates perfect confidence. The first quarter of 2018's SBCI has surged from an overall value of 57 to 62, indicating that small business owners are markedly more optimistic than pessimistic about the direction their business will go in the next 12 months. This is a record high for the index since CNBC and SurveyMonkey began measuring last year. The five point jump is also the largest quarter-to-quarter change the index has seen to date.

The CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey was conducted using SurveyMonkey's online platform from January 29-February 5, 2018 among a national sample of 2,800 self-identified small business owners ages 18 and up. Respondents for this survey were selected from the nearly three million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day. The modeled error estimate for this survey is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Data for this quarter have been weighted to be representative of small business owners nationally, according to business characteristics from the Small Business Administration's 2013 Statistics of U.S. Businesses and owner characteristics from the Census Bureau's 2012 Survey of Business Owners.

*CNBC/Survey Monkey additionally surveyed 10,392 individuals who do not own small businesses. Data for questions asked of the general population have been weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography using the Census Bureau's American Community Survey to reflect the demographic composition of the United States age 18 and over.

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