(OPINION) Michael Snyder – Anyone that was hoping for a “quick recovery” for the U.S. economy can forget about that right now. Yes, many states are attempting to “reopen”, but in most cases, it will be a multi-stage process that takes many months to complete. Meanwhile, fear of COVID-19 is going to keep many Americans from conducting business as usual even after all of the restrictions have been finally lifted.
Even now, many of the stores, restaurants, and movie theaters that have reopened are seeing very, very few customers. Unfortunately, millions of small businesses are not going to be able to survive in such a depressed economic environment for very long.
In America today, the rules of the game are slanted very heavily in favor of huge corporations and are slanted very heavily against small businesses. It has been this way for years, but millions of small business owners just kept soldiering on because they wanted to work for themselves and not some corporate behemoth.
But for most small businesses things have never been easy. For most of them, it is usually such a struggle to try to eke out a very meager profit at the end of the month after covering expenses and payroll. But now COVID-19 has come along, and many small businesses haven’t had any revenue for weeks.
The good news is that the lockdowns are starting to end, but the bad news is that many small business owners are facing a “new normal” in which their monthly revenues will be down by 30, 40 or 50 percent (or more). All of a sudden many small businesses that were once barely profitable have been transformed into businesses that are bleeding a lot of cash each month, and many of them simply are not going to make it.
It was always obvious that this pandemic would kill a lot of those businesses, but the true scope of the problem wasn’t apparent until now. According to Bloomberg, a survey that was just conducted found that 52 percent of U.S. small business owners “expect to be out of business within six months”…COVID-19 could shutter most American small businesses.
That’s according to a new survey from the Society for Human Resource Management which found that 52% expect to be out of business within six months. The survey of 375 firms was conducted between April 15-21 and doesn’t account for improved business conditions as some U.S. states reopen this month. READ MORE
When you are trained in Pandemic Management the first thing emphasized is keeping the economy running.
It may be that some business need to be closed ie” restaurant’s but all functioning business in a Free market place is deemed essential to the greater community. These teachings were tossed out in favor of closing all small business and shutting down their supply lines – why?
And Allowing all Big Box stores with mainly Chinese Sup;ly lines to continue to continue operating? Why?
Please note that the largest funders of the GOP are American Small business. Fauci and Birx both know the forging and perversely played Trump to shut down America