In the 46 years that the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) has been tracking business owner sentiment, only 10% of the monthly readings were better than last month's 1.6 percentage point rise.

January's surge in optimism occurred even as the business owner optimism index has hovered in record territory since 2017.

Business owners employ about half the U.S. labor force and created about 70% of new jobs in the last decade, according to U.S. Bureau for Economic Analysis data.