The S&P is up over 50% since its March 2009 lows and yet for most of us, the leading indicators and large company earnings seem to defy the reality on Main Street. Newsweek offered a view on why such a gap may exist – and some indicators are emerging to focus on small business sentiment — but the fact remains that most prominent economic indicators fail to paint a true view of Main Street conditions. Last month we started publishing a small business index that takes a shot at filling the gap. Based on same criteria lenders and businesses use for determining credit viability, the SBI provides a view into the cash flow on Main Street. And just as Newsweek paints the picture of the Wall Street – Main St gap, the Cortera SBI™ shows increasingly divergent behaviors between the largest of businesses and the nation’s millions of small companies.

The result is a one sided recovery. The latest data shows that while big businesses have returned to their pre-recession levels of two years ago, small business still remain over 28% higher (paying bills later) than our October ’07 report numbers. Simply put, small businesses are still paying slower than big businesses in an effort to manage their cash flow. Without any additional forms of lending at their disposal, slowing payments is their last resort. The gap, while narrowing slightly in our October Report, still stands at over 38% slower for small businesses as compared to big businesses.

A few weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal explained how small companies are getting paid more slowly by their large company customers while those same large companies are forcing the little guys to pay faster. Well, Cortera’s data is showing that the little guys are getting paid more slowly by their small business customers, too.

Our Small Business Index (SBI) shows that while small businesses (companies with less than 500 employees – the SBA definition) are improving, but they’re paying 25% slower than a year ago and 20% slower than the overall business average. It is also important to note the widening gap between big companies and small companies. Pre-recession, the measures for the average, small and big companies tracked in a tight range, but since late 2008 we’ve seen a significant gap open up. Small businesses have a 55% higher DBT than large companies.

This is a dangerous situation for small businesses and a bad trend for the economy as a whole. When the payment flow between small businesses slows, the resulting friction impedes their ability to plan, grow and sometimes even survive.