Facts About Small Business

Small businesses:

Represent 99.7% of all employer firms.

Employ about half of all private sector employees.

Pay nearly 45% of total U.S. private payroll.

Have generated 60–80% of new jobs annually during the past decade.

Are 52% home-based and 2% franchises.

• In 2007, there were 27.2 million businesses in the United States.
• Two-thirds of new employer establishments survive at least two years, 44% survive at least four years and 31% survive at least seven years.
• Commercial banks and other depository institutions are the largest lenders of debt capital to small businesses.

—From the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy