300,280 US employer businesses have been open since before 1978. They employ 52,332,869 people — more than the 4,433,985 that are under twenty-six.
2,686,413 people were on the payroll of the 533,856 US workplaces that closed in the year to March 2023. That is 5.03 each — and 8.95 in restaurants.
32.4% of the 2.91M US employer businesses answering Census use contractors, 50.1% use part-timers, and 18.4% have no full-time employee.
61.0% of the 2.92M US employer businesses that answered the Census owner-count question have exactly one owner, and the average one has 8.3 employees.
Census counted 4.21M owners of U.S. employer businesses: 51.3% are 55 or older, 5.7% under 35, and 72% call the business their primary income.
Census asked 4.24M U.S. employer-business owners what they studied: 16.3% hold a management degree. In health care 88.6% have degrees, 5.6% in management.
3,446,110 of America's 6,395,635 employer businesses sell under $500,000 a year and average 2.1 employees. Crossing half a million in sales is where the…
5,390,816 Americans filed to start a business in 2021 and 403,072 of those filings had hired someone two years later — fewer than in 2005, from less…
C-corporations are 14.0% of American employer firms and hold 60.4% of all extra business locations. Under five employees, every legal form runs almost…
Of the 84,523 U.S. dental practices with five or more people, 544 have reached fifty. In 31 of America’s 182 largest trades, under 2% of the non-tiny…
36.6% of the owners of America’s employer firms still own an earlier business; 8.4% had one close. And 48.7% have never run a business before this one.
Outside America’s metro areas, 946,590 workplaces opened between 1996 and 2023 and 947,046 closed. The closing rate is the lower of the two Americas.
62.1% of US employer-firm owners call greater income a very important reason for owning their business; 61.5% say being their own boss. Only 6.8% could not find a job.
79.9% of professional-services workplaces have fewer than five people on the payroll. In accommodation and food services it is 32.0% — a 2.5x gap.
14.3% of firms with 1-4 employees rate their performance excellent; at 20-49 employees it is 14.5%. But 20.8% rate themselves below average or poor…
8.5% of firms with 1-4 employees cannot say whether they used AI this fortnight. Asked about six months out, 24.8% cannot — a bigger jump than any larger firm reports.
Reaching 26 years cuts a firm's annual odds of closing by 61% in the median US industry, 77% in transportation and warehousing and 35% in health care — which has the safest first five years of all.
50.7% of the 523,958 US employer firms that closed in 2023 had been open six years or more. The annual closure rate falls from 21.0% to 9.7% in five years, then only to 6.3% in twenty-one more.
2.44 million of the 7.05 million net new US sole proprietorships since 2013 drive or deliver. Their average real net income per return fell from $9,840 to $1,693.
74.6% of US sole proprietorships reported a profit in 2013. In 2023, 68.8% did. Industry mix pushed the number up; the fall happened inside 15 of 18 industries.
Industry mix explains 23% of why state small-business shares differ. In 39 of 51 jurisdictions the bigger factor is the same industries being run at a smaller scale.
At least 98.6% of U.S. employer firms with fewer than 500 employees operate in exactly one state. The average firm does not reach two states until 300 employees.
Firms under 500 employees pay $55,663 a year per employee; firms of 500+ pay $74,832. That is 74.4 cents on the dollar, and a $19,169 gap.
45.9% of U.S. private-sector jobs are at firms with fewer than 500 employees. By state it runs from 66.3% in Montana to 39.6% in Florida.
31.3% of U.S. retail workplaces belong to firms with 500+ employees. In construction it is 1.5% — a 20-fold difference.
