"I think what we're seeing here is Washington not conveying their message to Main Street America," says MerchantCircle Founder, Ben T. Smith, IV. "Nearly 45% say the bailout will not help them out, and 35% aren't sure. To me, that means they view this bailout as only helping out Wall Street, with little effect on the economy around them. The focus should be on how Main Street America sees this bailout - and that's not coming across."
In key swing states, Ohio (300+ surveyed) and Florida (700+ surveyed), the numbers hold steady with: Ohio 20.4% 'Yes' the bailout will help out local businesses, 42.7% 'No', and 36.8% 'Not Sure'. Florida: 21.1%, 43.4%, 35.6%. Wisconsin (200) and Nevada (100) made up two of the states with the largest percentage of 'No' responses at 50.5% and 52% respectively. Conversely, Nevada also had one of the highest of 'Yes' responses with 24.5%. Michigan (100), one of the hardest hit economic states, had one of the lowest 'Yes' responses with 16.2%. 42.4% in that state said 'No' and 41.4% said 'Not sure'.
The survey was conducted through a random sampling of MerchantCircle members, and in all, totaled 4,269 responses. An email notice was sent to participating merchants and the survey was answered through an internet questionnaire. 31.4% of the sampling had one employee, 48.2% had 2 to 5 employees, 11.1% had 6 to 10 employees, 5.1% had 11 to 20 employees, and 4.2% 21+ employees.
