Small Business: Trouble on Main Street

Archive Report

Impact of the Recession

Increase in Bankruptcies and Failures

Within the next few weeks, President Reagan will send his annual report on “The State of Small Business” to Congress.1 The report will likely be as full of praise as the one sent to Congress last March, when Reagan described small business as the provider of “much of the growth in jobs and innovation as well as being the supplier of services and deliverer of goods to virtually every farm, village, town and city in our nation.” But the 1983 report will likely present a grayer portrait of the state of small business than last year's.

Business bankruptcies for 1982 totaled 65,657, up from 47,555 in 1981 and 43,374 in 1980, according to the Small Business Administration (SBA). ...

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