Small Businesses Say Crime Is Hurting Their Bottom Line

More than 200 businesses shut their doors in protest of rising crime in Oakland, Calif., on Sept. 26, 2023. NTD

Crime is resulting in higher costs for small businesses across the United States, a Job Creators Network Foundation (JCNF) poll shows.

Conducted from Jan. 3 to Jan. 29, the survey found that neighborhood crime has increased costs for 31 percent of brick-and-mortar small businesses nationwide.

Minority-owned businesses were the most affected, accounting for 55 percent of those experiencing higher crime-related costs.

The problem also appeared to be most prevalent in the U.S. West, where it affected 35 percent of brick-and-mortar small businesses. Midwestern businesses were the least affected at 27 percent, followed by those in the East at 29 percent, and the South at 33 percent.

“With historic inflation over the past three years, other challenges facing Main Street employers have often not been top of mind. Lawlessness on the streets of American cities is one example,” JCNF President Elaine Parker said.

“Our polling shows that nearly one-third of small businesses with a brick-and-mortar location are facing higher costs because of crime. The findings should emphasize to lawmakers that soft-on-crime policies have a significant spillover effect on the economy.”

 Employers Not Buying ‘Bidenomics’

Another key finding of the JCNF poll was the across-the-board dissatisfaction that small business employers feel toward President Joe Biden’s economic policies.

When asked whether “Bidenomics” was good or bad for the economy and their businesses, 63 percent of small business employers said it was bad, compared with 29 percent who said the opposite.

Although the Biden administration has touted the falling inflation rate as an indicator of a strong economy, 78 percent of small business employers said their costs of doing business have not improved. In fact, a plurality (48 percent) listed higher prices and inflation as their top business concerns.

As for the president’s job performance in helping small businesses, 77 percent of respondents had a negative opinion, giving him a grade of C or lower. Fifteen percent gave him a B and just 7 percent gave him an A.

Still, there was a small uptick in the JCNF Small Business Intelligence Quotient (SBIQ), a seven-indicator index that tracks overall small business sentiment where any score over 50 is considered positive.

January’s score was 56.3, marking a 2-point increase from December. But setting minor fluctuations aside, the SBIQ has shown no meaningful improvement in the last two years.

The survey was conducted among a sample of 400 randomly selected small businesses with a 4.9 percent margin of error.

‘Impossible for Us to Survive’

The poll’s findings are unlikely to surprise employers in Oakland, California, where more than 200 businesses participated in a citywide strike in late September amid rising crime.

Carl Chan, president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, organized the Sept. 26 strike in a plea for help from city officials, whom strikers said were failing in their duty to keep residents safe.

“Today, we want to focus on the solutions—what we can do to make positive changes,” Mr. Chan said at a news conference. “It’s not about division. It’s about unity. People don’t feel safe.”

And that’s a sentiment shared by business owners around the country.

In the nation’s capital, homicides, robberies, and car thefts have soared in recent years, as have costs. The result has been the shuttering of dozens of small businesses, such as Brine Oyster & Seafood House, which closed its two locations in November.

“This decision was not an easy one,” the restaurant’s owners wrote in an Instagram post announcing its closure. “Unfortunately, the challenges of the restaurant industry since the pandemic, the current economic climate, and the spike in violent crime have made it increasingly difficult to operate and impossible for us to survive.”

The city lost a total of 52 restaurants and bars last year—up from 48 in 2022 and 40 in 2021. Over the same period, openings decreased from 78 to 74 to 72.

The trend follows efforts in some cities to overhaul policing and criminal justice in the wake of the 2020 death of George Floyd.

In Washington, those efforts yielded a law that weakened penalties for some violent crimes, including carjackings and home burglaries, even as lawmakers and federal agents have fallen victim to such crimes.

The bill was passed by the DC City Council in 2022 and was vetoed by Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser. But after the council’s January 2023 vote overriding that veto, Congress and President Biden stepped in to nullify the law in March with a joint resolution of disapproval.

Months later, however, the president vetoed another resolution to overturn the city’s “Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act”—another law that has been criticized as being soft on crime.

Ms. Bowser introduced her own bill to address the crime surge in October. The “Addressing Crime Trends Now Act” would—among other provisions—prohibit criminals from wearing a mask for the purpose of conducting a criminal act or intimidating; impose criminal penalties for organized retail theft, and establish “temporary drug-free zones” across the city.

James Baresel, Travis Gillmore, and Katabella Roberts contributed to this report.