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Marion, Iowa © Tasha Sams

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We work in collaboration with thousands of local partners and grassroots leaders across the nation who share our commitment to advancing shared prosperity, creating resilient economies, and improving quality of life.

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Your one-stop-shop for all the latest stories, news, events, and opportunities – including grants and funding programs – across Main Street.

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Three Main Street America Staff members standing in front of a mural in Marion, Iowa.

Marion, Iowa © Tasha Sams

About

We work in collaboration with thousands of local partners and grassroots leaders across the nation who share our commitment to advancing shared prosperity, creating resilient economies, and improving quality of life.

Overview Who We Are How We Work Partner Collaborations Our Supporters Our Team Job Opportunities Contact Us
Two community members in Emporia Kansas pose with a sign saying "I'm a Main Streeter"

Emporia, Kansas © Emporia Main Street

Our Network

Made up of small towns, mid-sized communities, and urban commercial districts, the thousands of organizations, individuals, volunteers, and local leaders that make up Main Street America™ represent the broad diversity that makes this country so unique.

Overview Coordinating Programs Main Street Communities Collective Impact Awards & Recognition Community Evaluation Framework Join the Movement
Dionne Baux and MSA partner working in Bronzeville, Chicago.

Chicago, Illinois © Main Street America

Resources

Looking for strategies and tools to support you in your work? Delve into the Main Street Resource Center and explore a wide range of resources including our extensive Knowledge Hub, professional development opportunities, field service offerings, advocacy support, and more!

Overview Knowledge Hub Field Services Government Relations Main Street Now Conference Main Street America Institute Small Business Support Allied Member Services The Point Members Area
People riding e-scooters in Waterloo, Iowa

Waterloo, Iowa © Main Street Waterloo

The Latest

Your one-stop-shop for all the latest stories, news, events, and opportunities – including grants and funding programs – across Main Street.

Overview News & Stories Events & Opportunities Subscribe
Woman and girl at a festival booth in Kendall Whittier, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Kendall Whittier — Tulsa, Oklahoma © Kendall Whittier Main Street

Get Involved

Join us in our work to advance shared prosperity, create strong economies, and improve quality of life in downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts.

Overview Join Us Renew Your Membership Donate Partner With Us Job Opportunities
Westerngrace, a small-scale clothing manufacturer and retail store in downtown Sheridan, Wyoming. Credit: Sheridan Travel and Tourism.
Westerngrace, a small-scale clothing manufacturer and retail store in downtown Sheridan, Wyoming. Credit: Sheridan Travel and Tourism.

Our Spring 2023 Small Business Survey offered many insights that are valuable for Main Street programs looking to better support their businesses. Topline, data-backed takeaways include: 

  • Small businesses’ sources of pride and strengths offer inspiration for successful “shop local” promotions.
  • Downtowns and commercial corridors as the home of small, independent small businesses, especially those that are women- and family-owned.  
  • The broad range of concerns seen in the 2022 Small Business Survey have lessened, though concerns about a possible recession loom large.  
  • Owners of businesses located in, or served by, Main Street programs were more confident about their business success and more optimistic about their potential for revenue and staffing growth in 2023.  
  • Owners of retail businesses and businesses that have been in operation for more than 10 years are feeling greater precarity and nervousness, so offering extra support to these businesses could be especially beneficial.  

There’s so much more behind these top takeaways! Keep reading for a full analysis of these survey results, including comparisons to previous surveys, as well as insights on how to use this information to help inform your work supporting entrepreneurs on Main Street.

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About Our Small Business Survey

Since we conducted our first major small business survey in March 2020, Main Street America has received more than 15,000 completed surveys from small business owners and entrepreneurs across the United States. We’re grateful to leaders from across the network for sharing the survey with business owners in their districts and we are excited to share these latest results.  

We launched our latest small business survey in March 2023 and heard from 1,385 business owners and nonprofit leaders. The survey, conducted using the Qualtrics survey platform, was open for participation from March 8 to March 24. As a group, the 2023 respondents are very similar to respondents from our past small business surveys. The vast majority of respondents own businesses with very few employees, and many have businesses that have been operating for a decade or more.

A graph demonstrating the

Some other striking notes about the small business owners who responded to our survey include:  

  • About 60 percent of small business respondents indicated that the enterprise is woman-owned. This is consistent across our surveys, and it is incredibly striking given that the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that about 41 percent of small businesses without employees and 21 percent of small businesses with employees nationally are owned by women. Main Streets stand apart by a wide margin in this regard. 
  • Close to one-in-three respondents (32%) describe their business as family owned.  
  • About half of respondents own businesses that have been in operation for less than 10 years (51%), and half own businesses that launched in 2013 or earlier (49%).  

Small Business Strengths

For the first time, we asked respondents what they saw as the three greatest strengths of their business, and most respondents pointed to their products and services, as well as their customers and community as core strengths.

One less encouraging note on these self-reported strengths: Only 4 percent of respondents identified diverse sources of revenue was a key strength, which may be concerning as we consider potential economic challenges on the horizon.  

Confidence and Expectations for Revenue Growth

Small business owners reported a very slight increase in business confidence in 2023 compared to 2022. This year, we repeated a question from our 2022 survey, asking: “As you think about the next three months, how confident are you that your business will perform successfully?” on a ten-point scale, where ten equals extreme confidence. In 2023, the average confidence level was 7.7, just a tick higher than the 7.6 point average from 2022. In the current survey, 61 percent of respondents reported confidence of 8 out of 10 or higher; in 2022, 59 percent said the same.  

This confidence is likely related to the fact that 80 percent of respondents reported that their revenues had stayed about the same or increased from 2021 to 2022, and 72 percent of respondents expected that their revenues would increase in 2023. Studying this data more closely, we see that confidence and expectations for future revenue are linked to other key data in clear ways:

  • By relationship to Main Street: 74 percent of owners of businesses located in Main Street districts or receiving support from a Main Street program expected their revenues would increase year-over-year in 2023, compared to 70 percent of business owners who weren’t sure if their business was in a Main Street and 68 percent who said their business was not in a Main Street district. On the ten-point confidence scale, owners of businesses located in Main Street districts expressed an average confidence of 7.8, compared to a 7.7 point average for business owners unsure of their link to Main Street and a 7.6 point average for owners of businesses that are not linked to Main Street. 
  • By business type: 84 percent of owners of food and beverage businesses expected that their revenues would increase year-over-year in 2023. In contrast, 67 percent of retail businesses had that optimistic expectation.  
  • By year established: Owners of businesses in operation for more than 20 years were less optimistic that they would see increased revenues in 2023 compared to 2022. Among business owners whose businesses were launched in 2004 or earlier, 64 percent believed their revenues would increase year-over-year in 2023, compared to 76 percent of owners of businesses in operation for less than 20 years.  

Concerns

Graph representing responses to

In the 2023 Small Business Survey, we see evidence that many major concerns from 2022 have lessened as sources of worry. Concerns about supply chain issues, staffing, and attracting and retaining customers were notably less pervasive this year compared to last year’s survey results.

Inflation emerged as the one concern that increased by more than 1 percent from 2022, as 63 percent of respondents indicated it was a concern in 2023, compared to 58 percent in 2022. Recession was not included as a potential worry in 2022, but was identified as a concern of 48 percent of respondents in 2023, representing the second most frequently cited concern.  

Staffing

Very few small business owners—just 4 percent of respondents—expect that they will decrease their staffing in 2023. In sharp contrast, 62 percent expect their staffing will stay the same, and 26 percent expect to add staff. We found similar relationships between staffing expectations and other key variables as those between projected revenue change and these measures:

    • By relationship to Main Street: Owners of businesses located in Main Street districts or receiving support from Main Street programs were more optimistic about adding staff in 2023 compared to business owners who weren’t sure of their Main Street connections or business owners who said they were not linked to a Main Street program. Twenty-eight percent of owners of businesses connected to Main Street programs expect to add staff in 2023. Twenty-four percent of owners who weren’t sure whether their business was in a Main Street expect to add staff, and 18 percent who said their business was not linked to Main Street expect to add staff.  
    • By business type: Retail trade businesses were less optimistic about staffing (19% expect to add staff), compared to professional services businesses (27% expect to add staff), and food and beverage businesses (39% expect to add staff). 
    • By year established: Owners of long-operating businesses were less optimistic about adding staff in 2023. Sixteen percent of owners of businesses open for more than 20 years expect to add staff, compared to 25 percent of businesses open for 10-20 years and 31 percent of businesses open for less than 10 years.

Separately, we asked whether small business owners were considering ways to reduce their reliance on staff by using new technologies or changes to business operations. Nineteen percent indicated that they were considering this. Looking again at our comparison variables:

  • By relationship to Main Street: Greater proportions of owners of businesses located in Main Street districts or receiving support from Main Street programs were considering reducing reliance on staff (17%) compared to owners of businesses who weren’t sure of their connection to Main Street (22%) or owners of businesses who were not connected to Main Street (22%).  
  • By business type: Lower proportions of owners of retail trade businesses were considering reducing reliance on staff (15%), compared to owners of professional services businesses (23%) and food and beverage businesses (26%).
Graph representing responses to

We know that a variety of factors weigh on the minds of small business owners as they think about adding and retaining qualified staff, including housing affordability, housing availability, the quality of local schools, availability of childcare options, cost of healthcare, and their ability to pay competitive wages. Most respondents to this question indicated that they were concerned about their ability to pay competitive wages (65%), the cost of healthcare (55%), and housing affordability (52%). Additionally, 45 percent of respondents indicated concerns that childcare options and housing availability impact their ability locate, recruit, and retain qualified staff.  

Six Conclusions and Recommendations

The Spring 2023 Small Business Survey highlighted some important strengths of Main Street businesses and opportunities for Main Street programs interested in further supporting and lifting up their small businesses.  

1) As local Main Street leaders promote the businesses that operate in their downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts, they should continue to point to the following attributes that are demonstrated sources of pride for their entrepreneurs: the high quality of goods, services, and customer service, and the exceptionally strong connections between business owners, customers, and the community. 

2) We see, again, how strong the Main Street America network is in terms of the small, independent businesses that drive Main Street economies. The vast majority of businesses located in Main Street districts have very few employees. Our small business surveys continually show that about 60 percent of businesses in Main Street districts are women-owned. We see on this survey that nearly a third (32%) are family owned.  

3) Though the survey results suggest that macro-economic storm clouds and concerns over a potential recession loom in the minds of small business owners, the broad range of concerns seen in the 2022 Small Business Survey have lessened. Small business owners were much less concerned about supply chain issues and challenges hiring and retaining staff in 2023.  

4) Compared to owners of businesses disconnected or loosely connected to Main Street, owners of businesses located in, or served by, Main Street programs were more confident about their business success and more optimistic about their potential for revenue and staffing growth in 2023. This is no doubt a testament to the successful efforts of local Main Street leaders.  

5) Our results indicate that owners of retail businesses and businesses that have been in operation for more than 10 years are feeling greater precarity and nervousness. Offering extra support to these business owners could be especially beneficial.  

6) The results highlight Main Street leaders’ opportunity to bolster their small businesses by supporting housing in their districts, as housing supports small businesses on Main Street in at least two chief ways. First, by adding housing, small business owners can be less concerned about housing affordability and housing availability for staff in their communities. Second, new residents living in housing added to Main Street districts will inevitably patronize the businesses operating in the storefronts lining the district, bringing revenue for the small businesses that can be recycled in the local economy. For more on how to bolster housing in your downtown or neighborhood commercial district, check out our Housing Guidebook for Local Leaders, published this March.  

More to Come

There is more to come with these small business survey results. In the weeks ahead, we will publish maps with results from states and localities where there were many small business owner respondents. If you have questions about this data or Main Street America’s small business surveys, please connect with us on The Point or email the MSA Research team at msaresearch@savingplaces.org.   

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SnowShoe, a Main Street America Allied Member, is this quarter's Main Spotlight advertiser. For more information about what they do to support Main Street organizations, click here >