US small businesses are doing fine. Don’t believe me? Look at the numbers

Multiple small-business indexes show an uptick in optimism as well as an easing of cost pressures and uncertainty

Regardless of all the challenges they face, small businesses have been doing pretty well in this country across the board. Don't believe me? Take a look at some of the latest numbers.

For more than 50 years, the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) has published a monthly report of small-business economic trends, based on a random sample of the organization's approximately 300,000 member firms. This survey is one of the longest and most consistent of any I follow, using the same questionnaire since 1973. So where do things stand?