MILWAUKEE (WRN) - Almost two-thirds of Milwaukee area businesses expect to do better in the New Year. That’s according to the First Business Bank Economic Survey of Milwaukee and Waukesha counties. Over 560 companies were surveyed in those 2 counties by UW-Madison. And 65 percent said they’d do better in 2010 – up from 46 percent which answered the same way a year ago. 85 percent of the companies said the federal care legislation would negatively affect their firms, even though they don’t know the details of the plan yet. The survey asked a number of questions about their performance in this past year. Over 60 percent said they did not do as well as they expected. 82 percent had lower sales. Profits went down at two-thirds of the firms surveyed – and they slipped more than 10 percent at a-third of those companies. 43 percent said they went with fewer employees. And two-thirds said they either froze wages this year or cut them.