By Josiah Cork, WV News
CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — On Mar. 16, the Federal Reserve approved a rate increase of 0.25%, or 25 basis points.
While this hike is far from substantial, it will still have an affect on small businesses.
“Any increase in cost is felt throughout the economy and particularly by small businesses that may need to borrow for their cashflow needs or their inventory upgrades and building and capital needs,” said Steve Roberts, president of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce.
“When you think about what this means to a business in total, its interest is one of its expenses, just like utilities or the people costs or rent or whatever — any overhead or costs of the business, interest expense is one of those. With this recent rate hike, a lot of businesses that have credit would have that tied to that interest rate, which went up,” said Chad Prather, West Virginia regional president of Huntington Bank…
