Small businesses

Americans’ views of small businesses have become more positive over the past year: 86% now say that small businesses are having a positive effect on the way things are going in the country these days, up from 80% in October 2022.

Overwhelming majorities of both Democrats (88%) and Republicans (87%) view small businesses positively.

Large corporations, banks and financial institutions

Members of both partisan coalitions also have nearly identical – and mostly negative – opinions of banks and financial institutions and large corporations.

Just 38% each among Republicans and Democrats view banks positively. Republicans have become notably less positive toward banks in recent years; in 2019, a 63% majority of Republicans had a positive opinion of how banks affected the country. Democrats’ attitudes are mostly unchanged over this period.

Republicans and Democrats have similarly negative opinions of large corporations – just 32% of Republicans and 26% of Democrats view their impact positively. As is the case with banks, Republicans are less positive toward large corporations than they were five years ago (54% in 2019).

Technology companies

Democrats are somewhat more positive than Republicans toward technology companies (58% vs. 49%). While Democrats’ opinions are little changed over the past five years, Republicans’ views turned less positive between 2019 and 2021, declining 20 percentage points (from 58% to 38%). Republicans have become more positive since then.