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The
small business network Allignable's latest survey shows 47% of
small businesses in Illinois couldn't pay their rent in full or
on time in November, a slight improvement from October, but
still the 4th highest in the country. Only New York (51%), Ohio
(50%) and Arizona (50%) were higher.
"With a retail sector that really should be doing better on Main
Street at this time of year, which does concern us a bit,
because there still is 41 percent unable to pay the rent across
the country," said head researcher Chuck Casto.
The situation is worse for minority-owned small businesses with
61% unable to make rent in November, a 12% increase from
October.
In addition to the negative effects of cumulative inflation and
a new round of rent spikes, Casto said interest rates continue
to be a challenge for small businesses.
"At least 49 percent of all the people that we polled say they
need to lower these by at least three points before they can
start to recover," said Casto.
Illinois led the country in the percentage of small businesses
that were pessimistic about revenues to finish out the year.
The top sectors facing rent difficulties are car dealers, beauty
salons, realtors and retailers.
The survey showed that only 31% of pre-COVID businesses have
fully recovered financially from the pandemic era, which is down
six percentage points from October when 37% said they had fully
recovered.
The findings are based on responses from 3,767 randomly selected
small business owners surveyed from Nov. 2 to Nov. 29, as well
as input from over 48,000 other respondents over the past year.
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