SSI Reveals Small Business Owners are at Odds with Obama

June 3, 2009 - Shelton, Connecticut - Despite increased optimism for a broader economic recovery, many Small Business Owners in the U.S. believe measures taken by President Obama and Congress will have a negative impact on their business.

This concern was among key findings of the Small Business Owner and Omnibus study, conducted May 11-16, by Survey Sampling International (SSI). The quarterly survey, now in its second wave, leverages SSI's proprietary OpinionWorld Business Community of professionals.

According to the study, as the current administration continues to roll out plans for economic stimulus, Small Business Owners increasingly feel that the administration's policies will harm them directly. In the recent survey, 29% of owners said they possess a negative view as opposed to 20% just three months earlier.

Still, both sales and morale in small businesses showed a positive, incremental change quarter on quarter - even with continuing difficulty in securing loans at favorable rates and planned budget cuts. About half of Small Business Owners interviewed plan such cuts, the main victim targeted being expenditures on office supplies.

Of the 3,000 professionals invited to take part in SSI's Small Business Owner and Omnibus study, more than 500 participated. The study had an achieved incidence rate of 97% (with screening criteria set around small business ownership) and a dropout rate of less than 4%. Analysis was conducted with 424 interviews.

The study is fielded quarterly in order to gauge the attitudes and opinions of Small Business Owners during these challenging economic times. In conjunction, SSI has opened up the study to allow clients to add individual questions for their own research purposes.

Click here to view complete study results.

For more information on adding custom questions, please contact Chris DeAngelis, vice president, Sales, at Chris_DeAngelis@surveysampling.com.

About Survey Sampling International
Survey Sampling International is the premier global provider of sampling solutions for survey research. SSI offers access to more than 6 million consumer and business-to-business research respondents in 54 countries via Internet, telephone, and mobile. Additional client services include custom profiling, survey programming and hosting, data processing, sampling consulting, and survey optimization.

SSI serves more than 1,800 clients worldwide, including three-quarters of the top researchers. Founded in 1977, SSI has an international staff of 400 people representing 50 countries and 36 languages. The company has 15 offices in Beijing, Frankfurt, La Quinta (CA), London, Madrid, Mumbai, Paris, Rotterdam, Seoul, Shanghai, Shelton (CT), Stockholm, Sydney, Tokyo, and Toronto. Additional SSI representatives are in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Contact:
Lars Long, Director
B2B Research & Development
Survey Sampling International
+1.203.567.7200