(The Center Square) – A higher percentage of Illinois small businesses could not pay their rent in full in February.
The small business network Alignable surveyed thousands of business owners from across the country and found that 35% of small businesses in Illinois couldn’t afford their rent last month, the fourth highest in the country.
Head researcher Chuck Casto said the uptick in rent delinquencies for this time of year is alarming.
“Stock market volatility and the inflation rate bumping up a little bit again, all of that has got more small businesses more nervous than they were in January,” Casto told The Center Square.
Based on a survey of nearly 4,000 small businesses, nearly one-third nationwide said they were having difficulties paying rent. The highest percentages were in Michigan (44%), Georgia (40%), and New York (37%).
Casto said the situation is especially challenging for the transportation sector, which includes trucking companies, taxis and car services. In February, 53% of small businesses in that sector couldn’t pay their rent, an increase of 16 percentage points from the month before.
“That’s something that we all ought to be looking at because if transportation is having trouble then those costs get passed on to everybody else too,” Casto said.
Other sectors experiencing rent troubles include construction, restaurants and automotive.
As for the economy, Federal Reserve officials are concerned that a robust labor market continues to bolster wages and spending. As a result, consumer prices are on the increase.
The Fed will have to raise its key interest rate higher than projected if a recent trend of job growth, consumer spending and inflation persist, a Fed official said Thursday.
“Recent data suggests that consumer spending isn’t slowing that much, that the labor market continues to run unsustainably hot, and that inflation is not coming down as fast as I thought,” Fed Governor Christopher Waller said in prepared remarks for a banking conference.
