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Small-business owners' economic confidence rose slightly in December, according to a monthly survey sponsored by Discover Financial Services. Twenty-one percent of small-business owners surveyed by telephone Dec. 5 through Dec. 10 said economic conditions for their businesses are getting better, up from 15% who said the same in November; 51% of business owners surveyed said conditions for their businesses are getting worse, down from 54% last month, according to the Discover Small Business Watch, released today. The Watch is a monthly report measuring relative economic confidence of 1,000 randomly selected small-business owners based on their responses to six questions. Its creators established a base index of 100 in August 2006 when the Watch began. The Watch's overall index rose to 72.8 in December, up 5.3 points from November. In December, 42% of business owners said they delayed paying some bills in the previous 90 days due to cash-flow issues, down slightly from 44% who reported delaying bills in November. Some 40% of survey respondents said in August 2006, the first round of the survey, that they delayed paying some bills, a trend Ryan Scully, director of Discover's business card portfolio, tells CardLine he finds surprising. "Even as they economy has taken a nose dive, cash-flow issues have remained the same," Ryan said of small-business owners surveyed, noting that respondents say they decrease their own pay and find other ways to cut costs during tough times. "They're really a resilient bunch." Some 70% of small-business owners said they think the U.S. economy is getting worse, down from 72% who said the same in November. When asked about topics specific to last month's business cycle, 68% of small-business owners said they do not expect government bailout assistance to banks will help their businesses in the next six months. "That's pretty consistent with other types of issues where the government has intervened," Scully says. "Small-business owners feel that the government doesn't get it, and that their issues don't get addressed." Forty-eight percent of small-business owners said their own businesses should be entitled to federal bailout assistance, 35% said they didn't think small businesses deserved the assistance and 16% said they were not sure.
