The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data detailing the characteristics of business owners in the United States, including information on sex, race, ethnicity, and veteran status. This marks the first time that estimates of employer firms by owner characteristics, industry sector, and congressional district have been included.
The data are sourced from two surveys: the Annual Business Survey (ABS), which covers businesses with paid employees, and the Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics (NES-D), which focuses on businesses without paid employees. Together, these sources provide a comprehensive overview of business owner demographics in the country.
In 2023, there were 36.4 million employer and nonemployer businesses in the United States, generating $50 trillion in receipts. Of these businesses, women owned 14.2 million with $2.8 trillion in receipts. Veterans owned 1.6 million businesses with $1 trillion in receipts.
According to the 2024 ABS covering reference year 2023, there were about 5.9 million employer firms nationwide. Of these, women owned approximately 1.4 million (22.9%), while veterans owned around 261,000 (4.4%).
The release also provides demographic breakdowns by urban and rural classification, employment size, receipt size, and years in business:
– White-owned firms represented 80.6% (4.8 million) of employer businesses with $17 trillion in receipts.
– Asian-owned firms accounted for 11.5% (685,000) with $1.2 trillion in receipts.
– Hispanic-owned firms made up 8.4% (496,000) with $730.3 billion in receipts.
– Black or African American-owned firms comprised 3.4% (201,000) with $249 billion in receipts.
– American Indian or Alaska Native-owned firms constituted 0.9% (55,000) with $70.8 billion in receipts.
– Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander-owned firms accounted for 0.2% (9,000) with $13.1 billion in receipts.
The ABS is sponsored by the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) and is conducted jointly with the Census Bureau to measure research and development among microbusinesses as well as innovation and technology trends.
For nonemployer businesses—those without paid employees—the NES-D reported that there were about 30.4 million such businesses generating $1.8 trillion in receipts during 2023; women owned roughly 12.9 million (42.3%) of these entities accounting for $423 billion in receipts; veteran ownership was estimated at about 1.4 million nonemployer businesses (4.5%) producing $65 billion.
Additional highlights from NES-D include:
– White-owned nonemployer firms made up about three-fourths of this segment at nearly 22 million enterprises.
– Hispanic-owned nonemployer businesses numbered over five million.
– Black or African American ownership covered more than four million entities.
– Asian ownership was reported at nearly three million nonemployer businesses.
– Smaller shares were held by American Indian or Alaska Native owners as well as Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander owners.
This release also includes details on legal forms of organization such as sole proprietorships and partnerships.
NES-D uses administrative records along with decennial census data to link demographic information to nonemployer business owners across all sectors where annual gross receipts meet federal income tax filing requirements.
“There is no news release associated with this product,” according to the Census Bureau announcement.
