Owners Are Planning Like the Good Times Are Already Here

Somewhere in your market, a competitor spent July deciding to hire this fall. Another one priced out new equipment. The most useful economic report of the summer is not about the economy at all. It is about what the owners around you are planning to do next.

Every month the National Federation of Independent Business surveys its member owners on how business feels and what they intend to do about it. The July survey marked a turn: its optimism measure reached 99.8, above the survey's 52-year average of 98.0 and the highest reading since August 2025, with eight of its ten components improving.

What pushed it over the line was not better results. It was bigger plans.

The confidence is running ahead of the cash

Look at what improved. Plans to hire made the largest contribution: the share of owners intending to add jobs in the next three months outweighed those planning cuts by 20 points, the strongest hiring outlook since October 2022. A quarter of owners plan a major purchase for the business within six months, the most since December 2024.

Now look at what those plans will have to be paid from. Profit reports are still underwater: the July survey found shrinking profits more common than growing ones, a gap of 16 points even after a 4-point improvement. The owners with falling profits pointed first to weaker sales and second to the rising cost of materials. And the survey's uncertainty measure rose to 91, far above its long-run average of 68, driven specifically by owners second-guessing whether now is the time to expand and whether to go through with those purchases.

Plans at a three-year high, profits still negative, uncertainty elevated. That combination has a name in my business: a funding gap. When what owners intend to do costs more than what the business is currently earning, the difference comes from savings, from waiting, or from borrowed capital.

What borrowing actually looked like in July

The same survey tracks what owners pay when they do borrow. The average rate on short-term borrowing was 7.9 percent in July, up half a point from June, which had been the cheapest month since October 2022. Twenty-seven percent of owners said they borrow regularly, up five points in a month but still below the survey's long-run average of 34 percent.

Both numbers point the same direction. Borrowing is picking up off a low base, and the price of waiting for a better rate has been small and unreliable. Owners who put plans on hold through the spring waiting for cheaper money watched it get slightly more expensive instead. We wrote about that trap in what the Fed's rate hold means for small business funding, and July's prints did not change the argument.

The problem list flipped, and that changes who wins

For most of this year, when the survey asked owners to name their single biggest problem, the most common answer was inflation. In July that changed. The cost and availability of qualified workers took the top spot, named by 27 percent of owners, the highest share in years and more than double its historical average. Taxes came second at 16 percent. Inflation fell to third at 14 percent, its first decline this year after peaking in June.

Put the pieces together and the fall hiring season looks crowded. Job openings owners could not fill hit their highest level since June 2025, and 85 percent of the owners trying to hire found few or no qualified applicants. One Illinois transportation owner put it plainly in the survey: "I've had three trucks out of twelve sitting idle for six months now. I can find drivers, but they aren't drivers I trust."

Wages follow scarcity. Owners raising pay already outnumber those cutting it by 31 points, and roughly one in five plans another raise within three months. The owners who budgeted for that, and lined up the capital to cover it, are the ones whose offers get accepted.

Reading your own plans against the survey

• Which of your plans has a price tag and a date? A plan that is really a wish costs nothing. A hire, a machine, or a lease has a number attached. Write that number down, because it is what the rest of these questions are about.
• What pays for it if profits stay where they are? The survey says most owners' plans are ahead of their earnings right now. Yours may be too, and that is workable if you decide up front whether the difference comes from reserves or from financing, not after the commitment is made. Our guide on how business funding costs work shows how to price the financing side of that decision honestly.
• What does moving second cost you? If the technician, the machine, or the corner location goes to a competitor with capital ready, that cost never shows up on an invoice. It shows up in next year's revenue.

Where Monera Capital comes in when the plan is real

Funding a plan the profits have not caught up with yet is the ordinary, healthy use of borrowed capital, and it is most of what we do. Working capital funding carries payroll and operating costs through the stretch where a new hire is trained but not yet earning their keep, and equipment financing spreads a purchase over the months it will be generating revenue, with the equipment itself securing the deal.

A Monera Capital application takes minutes, and checking your options is a soft inquiry — your score stays exactly where it was. Decisions typically come back within 4 to 8 hours, for amounts between $10,000 and $500,000. If one of those July plans is yours, find out what you qualify for while the fall calendar is still yours to set.

Survey figures come from the NFIB Small Business Economic Trends report for July 2026 and the NFIB jobs report for July 2026 (887 respondents, surveyed through July 30, 2026), both copyrights of the NFIB Research Center. The member quote appears in the July 2026 jobs report and is attributed there to a transportation business in Illinois. Where this article contrasts July with earlier months, the earlier figures are from the NFIB's June 2026 editions. Survey "net" figures compare the share of owners reporting an increase against the share reporting a decrease. Figures are the latest available as of publication and are subject to revision by their sources.