Login
The U.S. Census Bureau has released preliminary results from their 2012 Survey of Business Owners (SBO), comprised of information from approximately 1.75 million businesses.
The final data will be released in December 2015 and will contain expanded geography and industry details. On their website, the bureau states that the survey “provides the only comprehensive, regularly collected source of information on selected economic and demographic characteristics for businesses and business owners by gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status.” The SBO is a valuable resource and was last released in 2010.
The National Women’s Business Council (NWBC)—a non-partisan federal advisory council that advises the President, Congress and the U.S. Small Business Administration on economic issues concerning women business owners—was granted early access to the data and has compiled four new fact sheets titled, Women-owned Businesses, Black Women-owned Businesses, Asian-American Women-owned Businesses and Hispanic Women-owned Businesses.
In an email announcing the release of the preliminary results and their new fact sheets, the NWBC shared the following survey statistics:
- There are 9.9 million women-owned businesses in the United States. That’s an increase of 2.1 million businesses, or 21.5%, from 2007.
- Of nonfarm and non-publicly-held businesses, 36.2% are women-owned in 2012; up from 29.6% in 2007.
- Women-owned businesses generated $1.6 trillion in receipts.
- Of all women-owned businesses, 10.6% are employer firms. They employ 8.98 million people in addition to the owner. In 2012, women-owned employer firms paid their employees $290.5 billion, a $75.8 billion or 35.3% increase since 2007. Women-owned firms with employees generated $1.38 trillion in receipts.
- There is a significant increase in the number of all WOBs making over $1,000,000 and their receipts, up 25.8% in number from 2007 and up 40.5% in receipts!
- The majority of WOBs (7,018,809) are still making less than $24,999 in receipts. This was also where the greatest growth was from 2007 to 2012.
- There is a significant increase in the number of sole proprietorship WOBs making over $1,000,000 and their receipts, up 48.6% in number from 2007 and up 84.7% in receipts! Still, the majority of sole proprietorship WOBs (6,945,961) are making less than $24,999 in receipts.
- There is a noteworthy decreasing trend for employer WOBs with receipts less than $24,999: There are 3.3% fewer firms in 2012!
To view the U.S. Census Bureau’s preliminary survey results, please visit, https://www.census.gov/econ/sbo/getdata.html. The new NWBC fact sheets are available at, http://nwbc.gov/facts.