If you talk to enough small business owners, you’ll end up hearing one thing said many ways. Small business drives the economy. Most businesses are small businesses. One-person firms make up the highest percentage of firms in the country.
And those statements are mostly true; most businesses are small businesses. That’s a trend that shows up in the numbers, specifically numbers collected by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Small Business Administration.
The most recent comprehensive data set available is from 2006, but it breaks the pre-recession trend down nicely. Here’s what the breakdown in firm size was like that year, excluding farm data.
This data looks a little strange at first, primarily because it includes a category for firms with “zero” employees. But that’s because data is measured in March, so some firms (start-ups after March, closures before March, and seasonal firms) have zero employment but still have a payroll.
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