After Trump won the election, the economic outlook became clearer. The optimism of small businesses in the United States reached a new high in December 2018.

The optimistic sentiment of small businesses in the United States continued its upward trend from December last year to reach its highest level since October 2018, thanks to expectations of favorable policies to be implemented by President Trump. Data shows that the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index in December rose to 105.1, higher than the market expectation of 100.5. Specifically, 7 out of 10 sub-indices showed improvement. Among them, the percentage of businesses expecting a better business environment increased by 16 percentage points, reaching the highest level since 2022. At the same time, the uncertainty index decreased by 12 percentage points, marking the largest consecutive decline on record, as the economic outlook became clearer after Trump's election victory and the Republicans securing control of both houses of Congress. NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg said in a statement, "With the improvement in economic outlook after the election, people's optimism continues to rise. Small business owners are feeling more certain and hopeful about the new government's economic agenda." Sales expectations also strengthened, with the proportion of respondents expecting an increase in sales climbing by 8 percentage points to the highest level since January 2020. Although business owners still view inflation as the most important issue, recent and expected price changes seem to be stabilizing at slightly higher levels. Concerns about labor quality are also stabilizing, especially the difficulty businesses face in finding qualified job seekers and filling vacant positions. In addition, the proportion of businesses expecting credit conditions to become more difficult in the next three months has fallen to the lowest level since February 2020. However, the surge in US bond yields at the beginning of 2025 may challenge this view in the next month's survey.