What’s on the minds of small business owners in America. With the economy still struggling to gain traction and the elections nearing, this is a question that many would like to know. The main stream media, both Presidential candidates, and just about anyone involved in politics is more than happy to tell you what they feel the correct answer to this question is but I would like to actually hear a response from the source. Yes, small business owners themselves. The average person can’t go out and interview every single small business owner and poll them with a series of questions but luckily a few companies have done just that. Take small-business legal-resource vendor Rocket Lawyer who recently released the Small Business Index showing that that more than a third of small businesses actually expect fresh staff to join their ranks within the next six months, among other things. They managed to interview some 400 plus small business owners and here are a few of the, somewhat dreary, highlights.  That seems like good news for job-seekers. 

Small Business Index: A Snapshot of August 2012

While 38% of polled small-business owners say they'll hire staff within the next six months, here's what else is in the survey:

• 56% of small-business owners expect the second half of 2012 to be better than the first. Compare that with 86% who said, at the beginning of 2012, that the whole year would be better than 2011. "It is clear that the high costs of labor, benefits like health care and legal compliance have made some business owners uneasy," said Charley Moore, Rocket Lawyer founder and executive chairman.

• 49% of the baby-boomer generation respondents said they were optimistic about their business' potential for growth in 2012. For millennials it was 79%. And 64% of Generation X said 2012 looked bright for their company's expansion. 

• 45% of the small-business owners, across all generations, said the economy is the number-one concern. 

• 67% of those polled said that small business has not been a prominent enough topic in the 2012 national election rhetoric.

Click on the link below to see the rest of the details.