The National Federation of Independent Business Optimism Index fell for the third straight month due to weak consumer spending concerning small businesses.

The report found three economic indicators in decline: poor job market and unemployment rate, weak capital spending plans and inventory investment plans, and inflation continued to rise. And one in four business owners cite poor sales as their biggest business problem.

Small businesses reported an average employment change of +0.01, and within the next three months only 13 percent anticipate hiring on new employees while 8 percent plan to reduce their workforce.

However, BNA, a resource for business information, revised a second quarter Wage Trend Indicator that expects workers' annual wage gains to improve later this year. According to the Department of Labor's Employment Cost Index, the first quarter had wages and salaries increase by 1.6 percent from the year before. The BNA report anticipates a 2 percent rate of annual wage growth by the end of the year.

Of the WTI's seven components, five were positive: job losers, industrial production, share of employers planning to hire production and service workers and the expected rate of inflation. The negative component was the share of employers struggling to fill professional and technical jobs.

Economist Kathryn Kobe, a consultant for BNA's WTI database, said, "The economy is still moving forward- it's just not moving forward very fast."

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