The Numbers Nobody Quotes

Here's a number you won't hear at any press briefing: 72,000. That's how many small businesses closed permanently in the last twelve months, according to the National Federation of Independent Business. Not temporarily shuttered. Closed. Done. Keys turned in, dreams packed up, employees sent home.

And here's another: the SBA loan default rate hit 11.4% in Q4 2025 — the highest since the pandemic recovery period. These aren't billion-dollar hedge funds making bad bets. These are dry cleaners, auto shops, restaurants, and hardware stores that borrowed to stay alive and are now discovering that survival was the easy part.

The Interest Rate Squeeze

The Federal Reserve has held rates at 4.75% since December, and every small business owner with a variable-rate loan feels it. A typical SBA 7(a) loan at current rates costs roughly $2,400 more per year per $100,000 borrowed than it did in 2021. For a business carrying $500,000 in debt — not unusual for a restaurant or manufacturing shop — that's $12,000 a year in additional interest payments.

That's an employee. That's inventory. That's the margin between staying open and closing the doors.

The Compliance Cascade

Meanwhile, the regulatory burden keeps growing. New DOL overtime rules. Updated OSHA reporting requirements. State-level paid leave mandates. Data privacy laws that vary by jurisdiction. Each one is presented as reasonable in isolation. Together, they constitute a full-time administrative job that most small businesses can't afford to staff.

My father drove a delivery truck for thirty years. He never had to hire a compliance consultant. Today, a small business owner in Texas needs to navigate federal, state, and local regulations across employment, environment, data, and taxation — or risk fines that can exceed their monthly revenue.

We didn't come here for handouts. We came here to work. But you can't outwork a government that's working against you.

What Would Actually Help

The solutions aren't complicated. Regulatory relief for businesses under 100 employees. SBA loan restructuring programs that reflect current rate realities. Tax credits that reward hiring, not just existing. And most importantly, a federal government that treats small business owners as partners in prosperity rather than revenue sources for programs they never asked for.

Main Street built this country. It's time Washington remembered that. Trabajo duro — hard work — only works when the system doesn't penalize it.