The Census Bureau’s Small Business Pulse Survey reveals some interesting first-hand insights on how the pandemic is impacting businesses. The weekly survey was originally created in April to examine the ways in which COVID-19’s was affecting small businesses. Participating businesses are contacted by email only and must be non-farm, single-location businesses. They also must have receipts greater than or equal to $1,000 but 500 employees or fewer.

The short survey is intended to take business owners less than 10 minutes to complete, but their responses are quite revealing. Let’s take a look at some of the survey results for the week of June 14-20.

Overall impacts

The first question in the weekly survey is, “Overall, how has this business been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic?” Of the small business respondents, 38.2 percent reported a “large negative effect.” The most severely affected industry segments were:

  • Scenic and sightseeing transportation (89.7% answering “large negative effect”)
  • Support for agriculture, fishing, and forestry (87.7%)
  • Transit and ground passenger transportation (78.3%)
  • Water transportation (76.4%)
  • Personal and laundry services (69.7%)
  • Food services and drinking places (69.4%)
  • Accommodation (68.1%)
  • Amusement, gambling, and recreation (67.2%)
  • Rental and leasing services (66.4%)
  • Hospitals (65.9%)
  • Performing arts and spectator sports (65.6%)
  • General merchandise stores (64.4%)

It’s not too surprising that some of these businesses reported that their company has experienced a negative impact as a result of the pandemic. Sectors like tourism, transportation, restaurants/bars, hotels, and retail stores have all been hard-hit by quarantine restrictions and/or shutdowns.

>> Check out our visual summary of the Census Bureau’s Pulse Survey for the week of June 14-20.

Positive impacts on businesses

What was perhaps more interesting in the survey results were the 4.2 percent of businesses that said they’d had a “moderate positive effect” or a “large positive effect” from the pandemic. Within industry segments, the highest percentages of positive effects were:

  • Pipeline transportation (37.7%)
  • Couriers and messengers (33.7%)
  • Food and beverage stores (28.3%)
  • Building materials and garden equipment dealers (22.3%)
  • Petroleum and coal product manufacturers (18.8%)
  • Non-store retailers (16.3%…this is online retailers)
  • Sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, and book stores (16.2%)

Cash on hand, loan payments, and Federal assistance

The survey also questions businesses available cash on hand and their ability to make loan payments. Across all businesses, 29.9 percent of respondents had cash on hand for less than one month of business operations, while 2.7 percent had no cash available and 10.5 percent did not know their cash availability. The industry segments with the highest percentage of respondents reporting less than one month of cash on hand were:

  • Water transportation (54.1%)
  • Couriers and messengers (49.1%)
  • General merchandise stores (47.4%)
  • Primary metal manufacturers (46.6%)
  • Furniture manufacturers (46.3%)
  • Health and personal care stores (45.2%)

As for missed business loan payments, across all businesses, 4.7 percent of respondents reported missing a loan payment. The industry segments with the highest percentage of respondents reporting missing a loan payment were:

  • Transit and ground passenger transportation (19.4%)
  • General merchandise stores (15.4%)
  • Accommodation (14.2%)
  • Mining (12.6%)
  • Personal and laundry services (11.7%)
  • Food services and drinking places (10.8%)
  • Water transportation (10.7%)

Interestingly, while 23.2 percent said they’d gotten no assistance from any Federal government program, many respondents reported receiving some type of Federal financial assistance including:

  • Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) (72.3%)
  • Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) (20.6%)
  • SBA Loan Forgiveness (6.3%)
  • Other Federal programs (2.4%)

The industry segments with the highest percentage of respondents receiving Paycheck Protection Program loans were:

  • Fishing, hunting, and trapping (100.0%)
  • Petroleum and coal product manufacturers (100.0%)
  • Leather product manufacturers (89.8%)
  • Nonmetallic mineral product manufacturers (89.2%)
  • Paper manufacturers (87.9%)
  • Apparel manufacturers (87.3%)
  • Printing and related support (86.9%)
  • Furniture and home furnishings stores (86.4%)
  • Ambulatory health care services (85.9%)

The industry segments with the highest percentage of respondents receiving no financial assistance were:

  • Support services for agriculture and forestry (87.7%)
  • Utilities (70.9%)
  • Credit intermediation and related services (55.6%)
  • Securities and financial investments (49.4%)
  • Chemical manufacturers (43.2%)
  • Other information services (41.3%)

A return to normal?

Optimism for the future is in short supply among small business owners. The survey asked small businesses for their opinion on how much time it will take for their business to return to its normal level of operations relative to one year ago. Forty-one percent of respondents expected it to take more than six months for business to return to normal levels, while 9.3 percent said their business would never return to normal levels relative to one year ago.

The industry segments with the highest percentage of respondents saying it will take six months or longer to return to normal were:

  • Fishing, hunting, and trapping (100.0%)
  • Support for agriculture and forestry (100.0%)
  • Hospitals (67.4%)
  • Pipeline transportation (67.2%)
  • Museums, zoos, and parks (66.3%)
  • Scenic and sightseeing transportation (66.1%)
  • Support for mining (60.5%)
  • Clothing and clothing accessories stores (56.8%)
  • Performing arts and spectator sports (56.5%)
  • Accommodation (56.4%)
  • Water transportation (55.3%)
  • Educational services (54.0%)
  • Oil and gas Extraction (53.4%)
  • Social assistance (51.1%)
  • Food services and drinking places (50.0%)

The industry segments with the highest percentage of respondents saying they don’t ever expect their business to return to a normal level of operation relative to a year ago were:

  • General merchandise stores (30.8%)
  • Couriers and messengers (30.7%)
  • Transit and ground passenger transportation (25.7%)
  • Apparel manufacturers (21.0%)
  • Personal and laundry services (19.8%)
  • Electronics and appliance stores (18.3%)
  • Food services and drinking places (18.3%)
  • Oil and gas extraction (17.5%)
  • Accommodation (17.3%)
  • Paper manufacturers (17.2%)
  • Amusement, gambling, and recreation (16.2%)

>> Check out our visual summary of the Census Bureau’s Pulse Survey for the week of June 14-20.

You can learn more about how these and other industries have been impacted by COVID-19 by visiting our free COVID-19 webpage.