Feb 8, 2024 — Women owned 41.1% (11.2 million) and minorities owned 36.7% (10 million) of the nation’s nonemployer businesses (those without paid employees) and had $307.9 billion and $345.1 billion, respectively, in receipts in 2020, according to the new Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics (NES-D) released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. There were a total of 27.2 million nonemployer businesses with $1.3 trillion in receipts in 2020.
In addition to demographic characteristics of nonemployer business owners, this release also includes data by urban and rural classification, receipt size of firm, and legal form of organization (e.g., sole proprietorships and partnerships).
The NES-D is an annual statistical series that uses existing administrative records and census data to link demographic characteristics of owners to the universe of nonemployer businesses. Nonemployer businesses are those without paid employees and are subject to federal income tax, with receipts of $1,000 or more. The NES-D statistics are the accompanying dataset to the Annual Business Survey (ABS) data on employer businesses (those with paid employees) and when combined with the ABS, provide a complete picture of business owner demographics, such as sex, race, ethnicity and veteran status.
Highlights for nonemployer businesses in 2020:
This release also includes demographic statistics of all businesses, those with and without employees, combining results from the previously released 2021 ABS (data year 2020) and the 2020 NES-D (data year 2020).
Highlights from these combined statistics (total employer and nonemployer businesses):
For more information on the methods used to assign demographic characteristics to nonemployer businesses, refer to the NES-D methodology.
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