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Yesterday, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy released an update with new comment letters, Requests for Comments (RFC) and, interestingly, new research. This new research presents an update on the state of small businesses in the increasingly competitive American marketplace.
Research Findings
Small Business Numbers:
- In 2013, there were 28.8 million small businesses
- 80 percent of small businesses had no employers, while 20 percent had paid employees
- Small businesses comprise 99.9 percent of all firms, 99.7 percent of firms with paid workers, and 97.7 percent of exporting firms
- Small businesses accounted for 63.3 percent of net new jobs from the third quarter of 1992 until the third quarter of 2013
- In 2013, there were about 406,000 startups and 401,000 firm closures
- In 2012, there were 9.9 million women-owned firms, and 2.5 million firms owned equally by women and men; 45 percent of all classified firms were at least 50 percent women-owned
Small Business Survival:
- 9 percent of businesses started in 2014 survived until 2015, the highest amount since 2005
- From 2004 to 2014, an average of 78.5 percent of new establishments survived one year
- Approximately 50 percent of all businesses survive 5 years or more; about one-third make it 10 years or longer
Small Business Characteristics:
- About 50 percent of all firms are home-based
- 9 percent of firms are franchises
- The most common source of small business capital is personal and family savings, with 21.9 percent of small firms employing this method, followed by business profits and assets (5.7%), business loans from financial institutions (4.5%), and business credit cards from banks (3.3%)
- 25.8 percent of contracting dollars went to small businesses in fiscal year 2015, an increase from 25.1 percent in FY 2014 and 23.4 percent in FY 2013
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