The next time you find yourself wondering just how important small business is in the United States, I want you to remember these words, IT IS HUGE! I have taken the liberty to share some statistics on small business in the Unites States. These are some interesting numbers that will shed some quick light on the importance of small business to our country.
- Small business represents 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
- Small business employs just over half of all private sector employees.
- Small business pays 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
- Small business has generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years.
- Small business creates more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
- Small business hires 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer programmers).
- Small business is 52% home-based and 2 percent franchises.
- Small business made up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters and produced 30.2 percent of the known export value in FY 2007.
- Small business produces 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited.
*** Sources (see the Office of Advocacy’s Research and Statistics page):
- Small Business Administration Website
- U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census and International Trade Admin.
- Advocacy-funded research by Kathryn Kobe, 2007
- CHI Research, 2003
- U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
