Alignable: 52% Of Minority-Owned SMBs Can't Afford July Rent
Alignable’s July Rent Poll showed that many industries and groups are still coping with the lasting effects of the COVID era, while others are bouncing back more quickly.
Alignable polled 5,911 small business owners from 7/2/21 to 7/23/21 and learned that the majority of minority-owned businesses (52%) still could not pay their rent in July.
That figure is much higher than the U.S. national average (35%) and the Canadian average (43%), both of which include all demographic groups and industries.
Women Face Ongoing Issues; Veterans Are On An Upswing
More than one-third of women-owned businesses (37%) also did not pay full rent on time in July, whereas fewer male-owned and veteran-owned businesses struggled.
In fact, compared to June, the veteran-owned businesses saw a 15 percentage point increase in the number of owners who could pay their full rent. So that’s a silver lining in this report.
Unfortunately, in comparison to June, the same percentage of women-owned small businesses paid rent in July compared to June.
Only 1% more of the minority-owned businesses could pay their rent this month. And only 2% more of all small businesses could cover July rent in full and on time.
Those increases represent glimmers of hope, but are not all that significant, especially given that 33% of all business owners tell us they're fully recovered at this point and many others have had revenue gains, according to our July Road To Recovery Report.
Rent Troubles Continue For Restaurants, Retailers & Others
Sectors that continue to struggle to pay monthly rent include: nonprofits (64%), entertainers/artists (50%), transportation (48%), event planners (43%), restaurants (40%), beauty salons (39%), gyms/fitness centers (38%), retailers (37%), construction (37%), and travel (28%).
Comparing these industries to our figures from June shows more ups and downs. The good news is that more small businesses in a few industries demonstrated that they could pay their rent this month than in June.
These industries where the ability to pay rent increased included travel (up 14%), event planning (up 7%), construction (up 4%) and beauty salons (up 1%).
However, looking at our chart from June below, you can see that a higher percentage of small businesses in other industries are having more trouble paying their rent. An additional 22% of nonprofits couldn’t pay their rent (jumping from 42% to 64%), largely because they report that donations to many charities are down.
Times are tougher for transportation companies, including individual Uber or Lyft drivers, as 48% this month couldn’t pay rent vs. just 43% in June. Other industries showed increased trouble affording rent, such as entertainers/artists (up 3%), retailers (up 2%), and restaurants (up 1%).
What About The States and Provinces?
Here’s how the situation looks for regional and local stories.
As mentioned above, in the U.S., 35% couldn’t pay rent in July. In Canada, 43% of all small businesses were in the same boat.
States with the highest percentages of small businesses unable to pay full rent include GA (46%), NY (41%), MA (41%), and MD (37%).
In direct contrast, states with the lowest percentages of rent problems were TN (18%), WA (18%), MO (22%), OR (22%), AZ (24%), VA (25%), CO (26%), and FL (27%). (Those figures show another silver lining).
Here are the percentages of small businesses in other states that weren’t able to pay July rent. Many of these figures are still high, though, in past reports, some of these states were in worse shape.
- CA: 35%
- CT: 34%
- IL: 35%
- MI: 34%
- NC: 34%
- NJ: 34%
- OH: 31%
- PA: 32%
- SC: 34%
- TX: 32%
- WI: 30%
In Canada, several big regions showed that over 40% of their small businesses still couldn’t handle paying their full rent on time in July: ON (46%), BC (42%), and AB (41%).
For more information about the states or provinces, or additional statistics related to Alignable’s July Rent Poll, please reach out to me at chuck@alignable.com.
To see other polls we’ve conducted since March 2020, please go to the Alignable Research Center.
ABOUT THE ALIGNABLE RESEARCH CENTER
Alignable is the largest online referral network for small businesses with over 6.5 million members across North America.
We established our research center in early March 2020, to track and report the impact of the Coronavirus on small businesses, and to monitor recovery efforts, informing the media, policymakers, and our members.
Comments (41-50)
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