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April showers bring May flowers, not entrepreneurial growth

While a new crop of May flowers may be blooming in Dr. Cornwall's garden, our entrepreneurial expert is less than sunny about the recent lack of growth shown by US small businesses, as measured by a variety of indices.

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Amy Sancetta/AP
With Spring temperatures soaring into the 80's, shoppers look over a multitude of flowers for sale in a display in Pepper Pike, Ohio in this May 2012 file photos. April showers were not as kind to new entrepreneurs, according to Dr. Cornwall.

While April showers have brought wonderful May flowers in our backyard, entrepreneurial economy is not blossoming going into the summer.

Here are some highlights from various indicators:

  • 71 percent of small business owners still believe the United States economy is in a recession according to results of the 2012 U.S. Bank Small Business Annual Survey
  • The SurePayroll Scorecard data shows that month-over-month, hiring and paycheck size show little change, both down 0.1%, while year-over-year, hiring is down 1.5% and paychecks are down 1.1%. Optimism among small business owners is also down from last month.
  • Intuit’s Small Business Revenue Index shows that revenues have been growing slowly, while their Small Business Employment Index shows that employment is growing slowly, by 0.2 percent in May.
  • Data from nominees to Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year program, shows that over the last two years employment growth in this select group of high-growth companies was 31% job growth. While this sounds promising, these businesses are hard-wired for growth, so in many ways these figures are not as robust as I would hope to see.

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