Americans prefer small business to big

Americans are much more likely to be fans of their local Main Street business than corporate titans, according to new polling from Gallup. 

Roughly two out of every three people in the U.S. say they have either “quite a lot” or a “great deal” of confidence in small businesses, Gallup found. 

{mosads}That means Americans are more than three times as likely to like Main Street than big business. Around one in five people said they trusted big business, according to Gallup.

Those figures are largely unchanged from a year ago – confidence in small businesses rose 5 percent, while support for big business stayed level.

In fact, Gallup said that it’s always found a majority of Americans support small businesses. The most support the polling company ever found for big business was four decades ago, when around one in three said they backed corporate titans.

Gallup suggested that small businesses are more likely to be popular because they’re local, just like Americans generally like their local government more than Washington.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle say they are focused on helping small business growth. But Republicans are perhaps best known for their ties to small business, and have tried to assure that Main Street is taken care of on topics like tax reform.