Small businesses have been at the losing end of the U.S. economy for decades, but nothing has diminished their stature like the Covid-19 crisis. Thousands of small firms have been driven out of business while their larger counterparts have largely survived and, in some cases, even flourished. In 1989 businesses with fewer than 100 employees accounted for 40% of the workers employed by all U.S. firms, according to the Census Bureau. Small-business transaction data collected by software and business-services provider Womply show that about 1 in 5 businesses that were open in January have stopped transacting entirely. In a recent survey of 6,325 small-business owners conducted by small business social-networking company Alignable, 42% of respondents said they were at risk of going out of business in the fourth quarter.

Source: Wall Street Journal October 09, 2020 09:22 UTC