81% of Small Businesses Hit 2026 Financial Goals, SBE Council Survey Finds

Eighty-one percent of small business employers are meeting their financial goals for 2026, according to the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council's latest survey. The figure, disclosed by SBE Council President & CEO Karen Kerrigan in an interview with Jeffrey Snyder of the Broadcast Retirement Network (BRN), points to a small business sector that is holding firmer than the broader economic mood suggests.

The survey's second number backs that up. Eighty-eight percent of small business owners say they are either stable or growing. Put differently: fewer than one in eight respondents reported shrinking. For practitioners reading the tea leaves on Main Street, that's a reasonably sturdy baseline heading into the policy debates Kerrigan came to discuss.

What are CHOICE Arrangements?

The interview, featured on TheStreet, Yahoo Finance, MSN and other national news platforms, centered on health coverage — the persistent cost problem for small employers — and a tool designed to fix it: CHOICE Arrangements, formerly known as ICHRAs.

The mechanics matter for owners weighing a switch. Kerrigan explained that CHOICE Arrangements give employers greater control over health benefit costs while empowering employees to select coverage that best meets their individual or family needs. Instead of the employer picking one group plan for everyone, the employer sets a defined contribution and employees choose their own coverage on the individual market.

Who is actually adopting them?

Adoption has moved well past the pilot stage. Roughly 20,000 employers now offer these arrangements, according to figures discussed in the interview. The more striking statistic sits underneath that total: 70% of small businesses adopting CHOICE Arrangements previously offered no coverage at all.

That's the so-what for benefits brokers and advisors. This isn't primarily a substitution product pulling employers away from group plans. It's pulling employers off the sidelines — firms that had concluded health benefits were unaffordable and offered nothing, now putting money toward coverage their workers pick themselves.

What does this change for small employers?

For a small business owner, the appeal is straightforward. Costs become predictable because the employer commits to a defined amount rather than absorbing premium hikes year after year. Employees gain portability and choice, since the coverage follows their circumstances rather than their job.

Kerrigan discussed the growing popularity of the arrangements alongside the policy reforms needed to expand access, strengthen certainty, and make health coverage more affordable. She did not detail specific legislative vehicles in the interview summary, but the framing signals where SBE Council intends to push: more employers eligible, clearer rules, and lower costs for both sides of the arrangement.

Why the survey numbers matter together

The two storylines connect. A sector where 81% of employers are hitting their financial goals and 88% are stable or growing is a sector with room to invest in benefits. And a mechanism that converts non-offering employers into coverage providers — at a rate of 70% of new adopters — addresses the population group plans never reached.

The interview is available on the BRN YouTube Channel, Yahoo Finance, TheStreet and MSN. Watch it if you advise small employers on benefits; the adoption figures and reform agenda Kerrigan outlines are likely to shape where small-business health coverage conversation heads next.