March Small Business Pulse

Chase Center for Economic Intelligence

March 26, 2026

What we're seeing

• Profitability stabilizes: Profitability remains positive and up year-over-year for the median Chase business, indicating that businesses are still well-positioned to weather financial shocks. Another proxy for stability, the median business’s ratio of monthly balances to expenses, also increased from January and is stable.
• Payroll growth increases: Payroll growth ticked up in February after a large decline in January, suggesting potential optimism for job growth nationally in the coming months. This acceleration in growth, however, will need to be sustained in order to reverse the gradual deceleration in payroll expansion seen since 2025. Non-payroll expense growth started to pickup after April 2025 and remains slightly elevated.
• Higher gas and oil prices are already showing up for freight trucking: Inflows and outflows for freight trucking businesses ticked up notably in March as gas prices rose. Rising inflows and outflows means those costs are being passed downstream to other businesses, and maybe ultimately to consumers.