The Pulse of Women Small Business Owners Taken by The Hartford

The impact of a presidential candidate’s small business policies on how women will vote is huge: 89 percent of female small business owners say that will be the deciding factor of their vote. This may indicate that they will side with a Republican candidate because of the cumbersome provisions in the healthcare law that providing insurance to employees could have on small businesses owners.

Conversely, women respondents said that they were not sure which government agency is responsible for helping small businesses but they were unified in their opinion that some agency should help. Most respondents said that it should be some local branch of government although any governmental meddling in business is an anathema to recent Republican doctrine.

Some challenges that women small business owners identified in the survey include, the increased cost of doing business; government rules and regulations; cash flow issues; lack of demands; problems hiring and retaining staff and access to credit.