Editor's note: This is the third and last of a three-part series on the collapse of small business in Oregon and is reprinted with permission from the blog of Echo Alexzander She and her husband owned FIRST Corvallis, a massage therapy clinic

The National Cost

In part 1 of the series, we reviewed the financial costs and the joke that was failed federal, state, and county-level emergency funding and support for businesses that were deemed by their government non-essential, or worse, made illegal to operate like ours. Part 2 gave a glimpse into the mental health impacts and prices paid by devastated business owners trying to survive and save their life long dream and passion.

As you drive down your main street, through downtown or the historic districts, you likely can't help but see boarded-up businesses, commercial for rent or for lease signs, or just dark vacant windows where a bustling business once operated.

By May of 2020, an estimated 2% of small businesses had closed forever. The impact? Over 100,000 small businesses closed in America in just a few short months. By August of that year, the headlines escalated to state 'Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands — And No One Is Tracking the Carnage.' That seems concerning. Shouldn't we want to find out the impact and find ways to stop this trend as quickly as possible? One study by December estimated as many as 800 small businesses a day were permanently closing in the US.

Another study estimated that the impact was that our country stands to lose $3 trillion to $4 trillion in GDP over the next two years (2021 and 2022) due to COVID-19 "pandemic" closures and business shutdowns.

What do those businesses and numbers mean to local communities?

The Climate of Small Business Attack

That isn't how I would like to title my segment on rebuilding small businesses in America, but it feels like the current culture we as small business owners are fighting to survive in. Surely there must be hope on the horizon, right?

Beyond the obvious issue of Walmart, Home Depot, and Costco being essential and small businesses not, what has the US political and financial climate become for businesses to rebuild themselves in?

Here the headline from Bloomberg:

IRS Plans a 50% Ramp-Up in Audits of Small Businesses Next Year

Why are these being targeted by the IRS? Is this really where there are the most impactful corruption or fraud concerns or are these the ones not involving any important wealthy people, politicians, etc.?

When this article was discussed on a Facebook page I follow at the end of 2020, I expressed my outrage at this insanity and was reminded by another discussion participant that this is how communism starts, the loss of private sector business ownership. What do you think?

How did Oregon close out 2020 for small businesses? An increase in taxes targeted on small businesses. They shared "According to the Oregon Employment Department, about 124,000 businesses will see their unemployment insurance tax rates go up for 2021, about 85% of all businesses in the state."

How can this strategy be beneficial to rebuilding? I'll help answer that one, it isn't.

Community Understanding

I think if more Americans understand these impacts, how these closures affect all of us, and how we can make changes in the future, we will be collectively better off. Why do I know we aren't yet there? Because of how one of our own long-standing customers responded to our situation.

By and large, the customer responses to the closure announcement of our business were of their overwhelming love, support, understanding, and empathy.

However, there were others that pointed to where we had clearly been responsible for this business failure based on our personal choices and not working hard enough, or long enough. Sadly she felt the need to reach out to us and place blame in this way: “Running a small business is a challenge. It is 24/7 - hardly a day off - especially for the first years. From your postings, I know you two like to take trips and being away from your business like that is fatal to any kind of growth.”

No. No business should run your life. Of course, there are likely to be seasons of hustle and long hours as an entrepreneur, but life is too short and precious to live this way 24/7 after eight years. This isn’t healthy or sustainable. There are ways to succeed in business and as an entrepreneur and I promise this isn’t it.

No friends, this was not the issue. In fact, it’s sad this email made no mention that there could be a health challenge or government-imposed crisis impacting our economy. That they believed their assumption about our personal lives would be our business demise is sad.


--Echo Alexzander

Post Date: 2021-03-08 09:49:01

Last Update: 2021-03-05 18:37:25