SMALL BUSINESSES IN USA – INTERESTING FACTS

February 20th 2012 at 7:19pm Published by firstdownadmin

There are 30.2 million small businesses in this country, which comprise a whopping 99.9% of all United States businesses. As a note, we pulled this statistic from the SBA Office of Advocacy, which defines a small business as a firm with fewer than 500 employees

● Firms with fewer than 500 workers accounted for 99.7 percent of those businesses.

● Firms with fewer than 100 workers accounted for 98.2 percent.

● Firms with fewer than 20 workers made up 89.0 percent.

● Employer firms with fewer than 500 workers employed 46.8 percent of private sector

● Employer firms with fewer than 100 workers employed 33.4 percent.

● Employer firms with less than 20 workers employed 16.8 percent.

• “Small- and medium-sized companies (those employing fewer than 500 workers, including number of employees unknown) comprised 97.6 percent of all identified exporters and 97.2 percent of all identified importers.”

• “Among companies that both exported and imported, small- and medium-sized companies accounted for 94.3 percent of such companies…”

• SMEs accounted “for 32.9 percent and 32.0 percent of the known export and import value, respectively.”

• Financing startups: “Startups make heavy use of personal equity and traditional debt, with over half using their own personal savings. Census Bureau data show that employers made greater use of financing than did nonemployers, but also continue to rely on personal savings. Roughly 30% of new nonemployer firms and 7% of employer firms used no startup capital.”

• Business expansion: “Existing businesses use similar financing vehicles as startups to finance expansion. Personal savings are the most common source of expansion finance, followed by reinvestment of business profits.”

• As majority and joint business owners, women entrepreneurs generated $453 billion in payroll for 14.9 million workers through over 12.3 million businesses.