On 14 September 2010, Catherine Rampell blogs at the NY Times, What’s Holding Back Small Businesses?

The biggest single problem facing America’s small businesses isn’t taxes or overregulation. It’s low demand, according to a new report released by the National Federation of Independent Business.

Thirty-one percent of small businesses surveyed by the N.F.I.B. said that “poor sales” are their company’s “single most important problem.” The other options included were competition from large businesses, insurance costs and availability, financing and interest rates, government requirements and red tape, inflation, quality of labor, cost of labor and “other.”

See chart breaking down what percent of small businesses cited each of these problems as their biggest challenge, going back to 1986.

Rampell writes

Much of the debate about how to spur growth and encourage hiring has focused on making the tax picture temporarily more business-friendly. But as you can see, the portion of small businesses citing taxes as their superlative problem has remained about the same — mostly in the 17-22 percent range, say — for about a decade.

Additionally, lending help for small businesses is another key stimulative policy in play, and meanwhile financial and interest rate concerns are a comparably negligible concern.

By contrast, the share of companies saying the poor sales is their main challenge has about doubled since the downturn began.

-RichardH