Those of us who walked the convention halls at NFDA in Las Vegas recently heard lots of reasons why many in the death care profession were not too optimistic about the immediate future of our businesses.  There was lots of talk about inflation causing rising expenses and interest rates taking a bigger chunk out of our potential profits. . . . And, even on the revenue side there were discussions about inflation exacerbating the movement from deaths with some type of services to an ever-increasing number of direct cremation deaths.

 

At the same time we were hearing those possible results the people at MetLife and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were compiling their “Small Business Index Score for the 3rd Quarter of 2023” and including it in this article.  They found that, on their scale, the “Optimism” of America’s small businesses had risen almost 10% over the score of the previous quarter.  For Q3 2023 the Small Business Index hit a reading of 69.2 as compared to the prior quarter when it hit 63.1.

 

They also announced that was the highest reading since before the pandemic started in 2020 when it sat at 71.7 prior to descending to 39.5 at the beginning of the pandemic.  You can see, from the following graph courtesty of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that it has been rising steadily since that first quarter of the pandemic in 2020.

 

Here are some of the findings that you can find in this article about the index:

• 33% of small businesses say the economy is in “Good Health”
• 38% of small businesses say that that their “Local Economy” is in good health.
• 66% of small businesses say that “Their Business” is in good health
• 72% of small businesses say that “Their Business” is “comfortable” with its cash-flow

 

However, 52% of small businesses say inflation is the biggest challenge and they are still concerned about rising interest rates and rising employee salary demands.  As a matter of fact, over  half of small businesses (56%) say salary demands are “challenging” according to the article.

 

“Concerns about supply chain issues, revenue, and rising interest rates continue to stay in a second tier of concerns this quarter—all measuring more than twenty percentage points lower than inflation concerns.”

 

Finally, 71% of survey businesses expect their revenue to increase in 2024 and 40% plan to increase staffing within the next year.

 

The article gives a great viewpoint for general small business as a snapshot in time.  It also has links to more detailed articles about related subjects for which we will provide the links for here:

• Key Findings in Operations, Environment, and Expectations
• Concerns about inflation stay near record highs.

 

More news from the world of Death Care:

• Funeral director devoted to building relationships.  The Daily Mining Gazette (MI)
• Want to have a “green funeral?”  These are your options in New Jersey.  nj.com  (NJ)
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