Tag Archive for 'polls'

RESULTS: What are your hiring plans for the year?

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 1:17 pm
in Future thinking, Hiring and Motivation
. 0 Comments

The Question:

Employment in the U.S. is still down. What are your hiring plans for this year?

16% - We will definitely be hiring this year.
5% - We’re probably going to be hiring this year.
61% - We only hire as business opportunity dictates.
18% - We will not be hiring this year.
Jim’s Comments:
There was a time when businesses hired in anticipation of opportunity, to make sure there was no delay in serving customers. But as you can see from our response this week, of the almost 80% who have no current plans to hire this year, three-fourths of them are waiting on opportunity to dictate their next step.

Employment growth has historically been one of the indicators of economic optimism. So when barely one-in-five of our respondents are making plans to hire, we have to be honest and admit that doesn’t bode well for the economy in 2015. However, as mentioned above, if good news could start taking over the headlines, those who plan to hire and those who would hire could turn the tide and result in over 80% of small businesses putting more new employees to work.

I’m working on more about this for an upcoming Feature Article, so stay tuned.  Thanks for participating.

RESULTS: What do you think of executive action?

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 7:30 am
in Government, Politics and Presidential policies
. 0 Comments

The Question:  
President Obama has indicated he is prepared to take executive action on immigration reform without Congress. What do you think?

0% - The president has the authority to do this and should
51% - Only Congress is authorized to change immigration laws
15% - I don’t care as long as we start resolving the immigration problem
34% - Here they go again. God help us
Jim’s Comments:
As you can see, none of our small business audience thinks President Obama has the Constitutional authority to change immigration laws. Over half specifically say presidents are not supposed to make laws, and the rest have basically thrown up their hands in exasperation.

With President Obama in the White House and a GOP-led Congress, the next two years are going to be rocky in Washington. But with this step Obama has just taken on immigration, it looks like he’s declared his intention to be combative and not in the mood to compromise during his final two years in office. #GodHelpUs

RESULTS: What should be the priority of Obama and the GOP?

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 2:14 pm
in Government
. 0 Comments

The Question:
As President Obama and the Republican majority begin their work, what should be their priority?

24% - Fix Obamacare
10% - Immigration reform
27% - Reform the tax code
5% - Foreign policy
34% - I’ll take anything if they’ll just work together

Jim’s Comments:
It looks like the big interest is in Obamacare and tax reform.  But more of you just threw up your hands and chose “I’ll take anything, if they’ll just work together.” That sounds like an indictment to me. What do you think?

Sadly, from the looks of things this week, we’re going to get anything but working together.

RESULTS: How do you feel about the taxes you pay?

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 9:00 am
in Economy: National and Global and Regulations
. 0 Comments

The Question:
With the tax filling extension date coming this week, how do you feel about the taxes you pay?

69% - We pay too much in taxes, especially for what we get.
 6% - We pay a lot of taxes, but it’s probably about right.
8% - Since we’re not profitable, we don’t play a lot of taxes.
17% - I would love to have enough profit to worry about taxes.

Jim’s Comments:
As you can see, almost 70% of our sample think we’re not getting an acceptable ROI on our tax dollars. Which is understandable, since the taxes small businesses pay represents precious capital that can’t be invested in the business. I’m going to have more to say about this in next week’s Feature Article.

Stay tuned and thanks for participating.  And be sure to take our new poll.


Warning: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Temporary failure in name resolution in /var/www/wordpress/wp-includes/class-snoopy.php on line 1142

Warning: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: unable to connect to twitter.com:80 (Unknown error) in /var/www/wordpress/wp-includes/class-snoopy.php on line 1142