Cognitive dissonance? Doublethink? A new survey onretirement preparedness finds thatsmall business owners in the U.S. hold two views that don’tcoincide with each other.

The Nationwide study, conducted by Harris Poll, found that 84percent of small business owners believe Americanworkers are facing a retirement readiness crisis.

However, 60 percent of SBOs believe that their own employees areon track to retire.

To top it off, nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of small businessowners say it’s important for a business owner to provideretirement benefits. But just a third (34 percent) of smallbusiness owners actually offer these benefits to theiremployees.

Considering that, according to the U.S. Small BusinessAdministration, small businesses make up 99.7 percent of allemployers, employ nearly half of all private-sector workers (48.5percent) and create 63 percent of the net new private-sector jobsin the country, such a dichotomy may not bode well for workers insearch of a retirement plan.

Read: 5 signs of employee financialstress

But there’s some good news on the horizon: the Patient Protection and Affordable CareAct.

Odd as it may seem, PPACA appears to be pushing SBOs along thepath to providing better retirement benefits—or providing them inthe first place.

Eighteen percent of SBOs say that PPACA has cut their companies’health care costs, and 25 percent say it’s made the health carebenefits they provide to their employees less attractive to theirworkers.

And many SBOs, as a result, are turning to retirement benefitsas a way to attract and retain employees, while other SBOs arefinding that the money they don’t have to spend on health carebenefits as a result of those lower costs frees up cash tocontribute to employee retirement plans.

The ACA isn’t the only driver of SBOs’ optimism—and it is anoptimistic outlook, despite their concerns over employee retirementpreparedness.

Of the SBOs who offer retirement benefits, including 401(k)plans, to their employees, 67 percent say they plan to increasetheir company contribution to their employees’ 401(k) plans.

Of the SBOs who do not currently offer retirement benefits, 30percent say they plan to offer these benefits in the future. Ifthat happens, then more than half (54 percent) of SBOs will offertheir employees retirement benefits.

Half of SBOs who plan to start offering retirement benefits saythey will do so because they expect sales or revenue to increase inthe next 12 to 24 months (50 percent), and 32 percent believe theU.S. economy will improve during the same time period.

SBOs who already offer 401(k) plans and say they will increasecontributions are even more optimistic: 56 percent expect companysales or revenue to increase in the next 12–24 months, and 53percent believe the U.S. economy will improve in that sameperiod.