Inflation has slowed enough that the U.S. federal reserve put at least a one-month pause on interest rate hikes, but it's still the top concern among small business owners, according to a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business.
Inflation is number one, hiring enough workers is number two
"It's been a constant kind of battle between inflation and labor ranking one and two," said Dawn McVea with NFIB-Louisiana.
McVea said those two issues go hand-in-hand.
"They're raising compensation for employees to attract quality workers, and they're paying those workers," she said. "The cost of labor has obviously been a factor in the whole inflation situation as well."
McVea says the optimism index finds nearly half of small business owners not expecting any improvement over the next six months.
"What we're hoping to see, maybe towards the end of this year, maybe things will start to get better, but we keep hoping but really the outlook isn't great," she said.