Survey shows Illinois leads country in rate of small business rent delinquency

(The Center Square) – Illinois has the highest percentage of small businesses that couldn’t pay their rent in full or on time in October, a new survey shows.

The small business network Alignable reports that 54% of the small businesses in Illinois experienced rent problems last month. That is compared to the national average of 40%. Other states near the top include Virginia at 50%, and Texas at 49%.

Researcher Chuck Casto said some businesses are still dealing with pandemic losses.

“They’re still paying off some of their debts from the COVID era, so the problem is with an economy that really is not supporting them well, it gets tougher and tougher every month,” Casto said.

Casto notes that technology layoffs at larger companies over the past year may be affecting the small companies who are often dependent on the larger ones as clients.

The survey shows the top industries experiencing rent troubles include science and technology, gyms and manufacturing.

The survey showed that 50% of small businesses said they are being charged more for rent than they were six months ago, with 15% saying rent has increased by 20% or more.

Casto said although the first month of the fourth quarter got off to a rough start, maybe things will improve in November.

“We are really hoping that this report is better next month because we’ll be firmly into the holiday shopping season,” Casto said.

Alignable’s findings are based on responses from 4,246 randomly selected small business owners surveyed from between Oct. 1 to Oct. 30, 2023, as well as input from more than 44,000 other respondents over the past year.