POLL -- Tampa-Area Business Owners: How Are You Faring?

Jul 18th, 2025

Welcome Tampa-Area Business Owners,

Please share the very latest on your business for a poll that will be used by local officials and policymakers, as they develop new programs for small businesses.

Just take a minute to complete the poll and we'll share results later. Thanks in advance.

Please feel free to add to the comment section below if you have more you'd like to say about the state of the small business economy in your area.

As Head of PR & a former SMB owner himself, Chuck Casto is a small business crusader. He’s deeply invested in letting national media and social influencers know what’s really happening on Main Street. From promoting our polls, to running contests celebrating member achievements, to acting as managing editor of the newsletter, Chuck's one of our chief storytellers. Before Alignable, he led branding, PR & social campaigns for companies from Haagen-Dazs to Harley-Davidson & Wendy’s to Wayfair. Prior to PR, Chuck was a TV reporter in NY, and an editor for local Gannett newspapers. Chuck holds a B.A. from Brown & an M.S.J. from Northwestern.

9 Comments

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Comments (1-9)

from

Commented on Aug 10th, 2025

All of our costs have gone up 30% this year. Nothing has been spared—business and personal. In Florida, Consumer confidence is high, while people are using their credit cards to float that lifestyle at 25% interest!

Florida is ranked as the second most financially distressed state in the U.S., per WalletHub’s recent analysis—largely driven by burdensome credit card debt.ABC Action News Tampa Bay (WFTS)

The average credit card balance in Florida is approximately $7,392, which represents 11.7% of the state’s median income ($62,973), and reflects an elevated dependency on revolving credit. Additionally, the utilization rate averages 31%, with average FICO scores hovering around 707.floridapolitics.com

Reality and feelings are projected to collide mid-March 2026.

from

Commented on Aug 2nd, 2025

Property taxes are our biggest expense. It’s like having to pay rent to the city for owning our business property.

Clinton Jones from Stroll Belleair & The Beaches Magazine

That is exactly what it is, and hopefully, this will be rectified by Trump and DeSantis this year. Currently, you can never truly own property because if you miss a property tax payment, they take your house. That is unconstitutional, as we have the right to own property, and we are not enjoying those rights as it currently stands.

from

Commented on Aug 30th, 2025

Government programs for small businesses are worthless because all of the funds go to those who are politically connected, and the average small business owner isn't politically connected and doesn't have enough resources to become politically connected.

This culture of corruption and the resulting worthlessness of small business development programs designed to fund small businesses was widely recognized by professors of business at least as early as the 1980s. Similar state and local business development plans do exactly the same thing by only helping fund connected business owners.

The best things that could be done for small businesses are cutting property taxes and ending growth management laws which severely raise the cost of real estate by dramatically raising the cost of developing new commercial and residential properties which results in inadequate supply of such properties and dramatically raises the cost of doing business while doing nothing to prohibit any connected developer from developing anything even if it directly violates the comprehensive plan.