One-third of US small businesses couldn't pay rent in October.

Over a third of small businesses in the United States were unable to cover their full October rent obligation.

In October, more than a third of small businesses in the US couldn't pay all of their rent.

A new report shows that the number of US small businesses that are behind on their rent has gone up by a lot this month.

About 37% of small businesses, which between them employ almost half of all Americans working in the private sector, were unable to pay their rent in full in October. This is what a survey from Alignable, a network of 7 million small businesses based in Boston, found. The survey showed that it has gone up by seven percentage points since last month and is now happening at the fastest rate this year.

Chuck Casto, the head of research at Alignable, said that small business owners are strong, but "basically, inflationary pressures are eating away at their incomes."

Between October 15 and October 27, 4,789 small business owners were polled. Some of the results show how inflation is hurting small businesses. More than half of renters say that their rent is at least 10% higher than it was six months ago, and seven out of ten say that their rent has gone up by at least 20%.

About 49% of restaurants couldn't pay their rent this month, which is up from 36% in September, and 37% of real estate agents couldn't pay their rent, which is up from 27% last month. This is because home sales have slowed down because of higher mortgage rates, which has cooled the housing market.

COVID-19: Supply chain problems are also a big problem for businesses, especially small business owners who run auto shops and dealerships. Still, business is slow because customers can't get the parts they need to fix their cars. Almost half of car repair shops and auto dealerships were not able to meet their rent this month, the report said.

Alignable found that one-third of businesses could go out of business if sales don't "ramp up" in the next few months.