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Resource Library - Vital Statistics
Small business is the engine of economic growth.
There are currently over 22 million small businesses in America -
and the number is growing rapidly, with over 800,000 started last
year, alone. Small business accounts for 99% of all U.S. businesses.
It employs 53% of the private work force and contributes over half
of the nation's private gross domestic product.
Source:
How important are small businesses to the
U.S. economy?
Small firms:
- Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
- Employ about half of all private sector employees.
- Pay more than 45 percent of total U.S. private
payroll.
- Have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs
annually over the last decade.
- Create more than half of non-farm private gross
domestic product (GDP).
- Supplied 22.8 percent of the total value of
federal prime contracts in FY 2006.
- Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as
scientists, engineers, and computer workers).
- Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent
franchises.
- Made up 97 percent of all identified exporters and
produced 28.6 percent of the known export value in FY 2004.
- Small innovative firms produce 13 times more
patents per employee than large patenting firms, and their patents
are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one
percent most cited.
Source: U.S. Dept.
of Commerce, Bureau of the Census; Advocacy-funded research by
Kathryn Kobe, 2007 (www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs299tot.pdf);
Federal Procurement Data System; Advocacy-funded research by CHI
Research, 2003 (www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs225tot.pdf);
U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population
Survey; U.S. Dept. of Commerce, International Trade
Administration.
How many small businesses are there?
In 2006, there were 26.8 million businesses
in the United States, according to Office of Advocacy
estimates. Census data show that there were 5.9 million
firms with employees and 19.5 million without employees in 2004.
Applying the sole proprietorship growth rates to the non-employer
figures and similar Department of Labor growth rates to the employer
figures produces the 26.8 million figure. Small firms with fewer
than 500 employees represent 99.9 percent of the 26.8 million
businesses (including both employers and non-employers), as the most
recent data show there were more than 17,000 large businesses in
2004.
Source: Office of Advocacy
estimates based on data from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of
the Census, and U.S. Dept. of Labor, Employment and Training
Administration.
What is small firms’ share of
employment?
Small businesses employ about half of U.S.
workers. Of 115.1 million non-farm private sector workers
in 2004, small firms with fewer than 500 workers employed 58.6
million and large firms employed 56.5 million. Firms with fewer than
20 employees employed 21.2 million, and firms with 100 employees,
41.8 million. Although small firms create 60 to 80 percent of net
new jobs, their share of employment remains steady since some firms
grow into large firms as they create new jobs.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Commerce,
U.S. Bureau of the Census.
CSUMB Small Business
Development Center. 425 Belden Street (mail to P.O. Box 540),
Gonzales, CA 93926
Phone: (831) 675-SBDC
(7232) Fax (831)
675-7234 Email: SBDC@CSUNB.edu
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