Get the study: The Main Street Index: How America’s Small to Mid-Sized Businesses Are Navigating the Post-Pandemic Economy
The businesses’ scores in the PYMNTS Main Street Index (MSI) — a quarterly metric measuring the health of the businesses that populate Main Street USA — recovered to pre-pandemic levels just two quarters after the pandemic began, even as the global economy endured months of volatility and many sectors of industry came to a virtual standstill.
Currently, MSI scores stand at 12.6 percentage points above their lowest recent measurements, which coincided with the most difficult quarter of the pandemic.
There are regional differences in MSI performance, however. Pandemic-related employment patterns and regional regulatory changes had varying degrees of impact on America’s small businesses, and that is reflected in MSI performance across regions.
Region to region, post-pandemic growth paths show evidence of increasing disparities between results. The South and the Southwest have superseded their pre-pandemic scores, while the Northeast MSI still stands 2% below pre-pandemic levels.
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The nationwide MSI has had mixed results in comparison to the GDP, the general U.S. index for all businesses. The MSI’s Q1 2021 descent was greater than that of the GDP, reflecting the severe impact of the pandemic’s Q1 resurgence on MSI businesses, yet the MSI’s recovery in Q2 exceeded that of the total U.S. index.
The trajectories of the MSI and the GDP have diverged. The MSI is now projected to trend flat despite its powerful positive trend reversal in Q2, while industry research suggests that the GDP will continue its positive trajectory.
