Paychex Small Business Snapshot: Top Priorities for Small Business Owners Under Trump Administration

With less than three weeks remaining until the 2017 presidential inauguration on January 20, America’s small business owners are weighing in on what priorities they’d most like to see President-elect Trump tackle once in office. According to a recent study by Paychex, Inc., a leading provider of integrated human capital management solutions for payroll, HR, retirement, and insurance services, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), immigration and tax reform are top-of-mind for business owners looking ahead to the new administration.

Of the more than 400 small business owners polled, 1 in 5 said the Affordable Care Act is the priority they’d like to see President-elect Trump address first. Following closely on respondents’ priority list were immigration reform (17%), tax reform (16%), U.S. infrastructure (16%), employee pay laws (i.e., minimum wage, pay equity, overtime rules) (15%), and government regulation and complexity (12%). Foreign trade agreements rounded out the responses with 4% seeing that as a top priority.

“Our first post-election research produced results generally consistent with what we heard from business owners leading up to November,” said Martin Mucci, Paychex president and CEO. “Healthcare reform continues to be a key issue business owners are anxious to see addressed in the coming months, but they’ve clearly not lost sight of other important matters – such as taxes, regulation, and wages – that have the potential to significantly impact their business under the new administration.”

Prior to the November election, a Paychex survey found the three most important issues, according to small business owners, heading to the polls were healthcare, government regulation and complexity, and tax reform. The results of that research indicated 38% of business owners want to see the ACA repealed, while 27% want to see the ACA expanded. Additionally, 55% reported government regulation and complexity was hurting their company’s profitability. With regards to tax reform that would positively impact their business, respondents were split between closing tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy (53%) and reducing the number of individual tax brackets and establishing a top corporate tax rate of 15 percent (47%).

Top Priorities for Small Business Owners Under Trump from Paychex

About the Paychex Small Business Snapshot
The Paychex Small Business Survey was administered by Survey Monkey via Cint. The survey was fielded online between November 16, 2016 and November 18, 2016. It polled 444 business owners or partners with 1-500 employees.