Empire State Today

New York was one of the nation's four large metro areas in which at least 5 percent of small business owners reported they had no cash on hand during a one-week period in June, according to a LendingTree survey released earlier this month.

The other three metro areas were Cleveland, Kansas City, Missouri, and Providence, Rhode Island, according to the survey results issued July 14.

The survey concluded that up to 40% of small businesses in large cities across the nation are at risk of closing because of government-mandated shutdowns intended to reduce spread of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Between 24% and 40% of small businesses in 50 U.S. metro are at substantial risk "of having to shut down soon if business doesn’t return to normal," the survey said.

The LendingTree survey ranked areas in which small business owners had the least cash on hand based on the U.S. Census Bureau's Small Business Pulse Survey, which has been tracking changes during the pandemic.

LendingTree found that the percentage of small business owners in the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas with less than one month of cash reserves on hand between June 20 to June 27 and then ranked them from highest to lowest.

Information about coronavirus cases, as of July 13, came from The New York Times, according to the LendingTree survey.

New York ranked No. 7 among those largest metro areas as having small business owners reporting dismal cash-on-hand information. More than half of those New York small business owners surveyed said they have more than a month of cash on hand while 34.5 percent reported they had less than a month of cash on hand.

Almost 14 percent of New York small business owners in the survey said the did not know how much cash they have on hand.