The D.C. Policy Center’s Rivlin Initiative recently completed the first round of its 2025 Quarterly Business Sentiments Survey and the fifth round overall. The objective of the survey is to provide detailed information on the business community’s experiences to elected officials, the media, and the broader community. Distributed in mid-January, the survey covered businesses’ recent experiences, six-month expectations for the local, regional, and national economies, and experiences with crime in the District and the broader region.
Respondents primarily came from small businesses in the D.C. region
The 293 first-round survey respondents were primarily owners or executives of businesses in the professional, scientific, and technical services sector, real estate, and the nonprofit sector. 53 percent of respondents came from businesses that have been in operation for more than 10 years, and 85 percent came from businesses with 20 employees or fewer.[1] Despite the reasonable sample size, the results reported below are subject to some limitations that are common to many surveys. For this reason, the results should be viewed as primarily qualitative.[2]
Finding # 1: A majority of surveyed businesses reported minimal to no change with respect to staffing, space, and revenue in the three months before the survey.
In the three months leading up to the survey, a majority of survey respondents reported minimal to no changes in the amount of space occupied, the number of employees, or the amount of revenue generated by their affiliated business. At the same time, a larger share of businesses reported a decline in revenue and staffing levels than those that reported increases. For context, these results closely mirror the results of the fourth round in 2024.
Finding # 2: Six-month economic expectations have converged, with more respondents anticipating weaker than stronger conditions.
Survey respondents’ six-month expectations about the District, regional, and national economies have converged. For much of 2024, respondents were more optimistic about the national economy than the District’s economy. At the start of 2025, more respondents expect the local, regional, and national economies to weaken rather than strengthen in the next six months. At the same time, between a quarter and a third of respondents expect minimal to no change in economic conditions – whether it be locally, regionally, or nationally.
The convergence in expectations may have arisen from heightened uncertainty surrounding the scope of policy changes under the Trump administration. The administration has made it clear that it favors protectionist trade policies, restrictive immigration measures, tax reductions, regulatory rollbacks, and substantial cuts to federal spending. The administration also plans to reduce the number of leased and owned federal office buildings while requiring federal employees to return to the office. While the overall economic effects of these policies remain unclear, there are grounds for concern that economic conditions will weaken. Economists warn that the combined effects of increased deportations and tariffs could fuel a resurgence of inflation.
Finding # 3: Nearly half of surveyed businesses report being more concerned about public safety than they were last year.
Nearly half of survey respondents registered greater concern about crime compared to their level of concern in January 2024, while 10 percent reported being less concerned, and 40 percent noted no change in their level of concern. Despite the elevated concerns, nearly 60 percent of respondents stated that their affiliated business remained unaffected by crime in the past year. But 17 percent experienced a single crime, 19 percent faced two to five incidents, and 5 percent encountered six or more crimes during the year. Property damage, disruptive behavior, and robbery or burglary were the most common crimes that affected surveyed businesses.
Finding # 4: Between 2023 and 2024, crime declined in D.C.
Crime data shows declines across various offenses between 2023 and 2024. The homicide rate fell from roughly 40 per 100,000 residents in 2023 to 24 per 100,000 in 2024.[3] Burglaries, robberies, and thefts also decreased, with burglary rates dropping from 159 to 121 per 100,000 residents, robberies declining from 504 to 255 per 100,000 residents, and thefts decreasing from 3055 to 2308 per 100,000 residents.[4]
Public safety must remain a top priority
Given that concerns about crime and public safety can affect business decisions and economic activity in the District, public safety must remain a top priority for the city. While many discussions of crime focus on crime rates, focusing solely on rates can lead to an incomplete picture. Even when crime rates stabilize or decline, the overall number of crimes in D.C. may remain high and contribute to concerns about public safety. Through thoughtful, targeted public policies, the District can build on its recent progress in reducing crime and secure lasting improvements in both public safety and public sentiment.
Data appendix
- Crime data for D.C. was obtained from the Real-Time Crime Index (RTCI) website. The website cautions that “crime counts for an agency are a snapshot in time and may vary from what is published by that agency or eventually published by the FBI depending on the reporting methodology for that agency. These differences are almost always minor and should not impact that agency’s overall trend…The purpose of the RTCI is to accurately portray crime trends rather than precise counts of crimes, which requires accepting that crime data is often inexact and incomplete.”
- The data on the District’s resident population can be accessed via FRED.
[1] Using data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) for the second quarter of 2024, we weighted responses based on the industry distribution of businesses in the D.C. region. The raw sample size is 293 and the weighted sample size is 289.1 (Findings # 1 and 2). The raw sample size for the subset of questions on public safety is 249 and the weighted sample size is 243.6 (Finding # 3). The results documented in this report are based on the weighted data.
[2] For instance, it cannot be confidently assumed that the sentiments of the survey participants are representative of those who did not complete the survey. Note that survey respondents were primarily recruited via email from a list of registered businesses in the District of Columbia.
[3] For a fuller discussion of homicide trends in the D.C. region, see the 2024 State of the Capital Region report by Stan Veuger, Domonic Bearfield, Leah Brooks, and Ferdinando Monte.
[4] Definitions of homicide (murder), burglary, robbery, theft, and other crimes can be found here.