The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data detailing the characteristics of business owners in the United States, covering both employer and nonemployer businesses. The release includes information on sex, race, ethnicity, veteran status, and other demographic factors.
For the first time, estimates are provided for employer firms by owner characteristics, industry sector, and congressional district. The data comes from two sources: the Annual Business Survey (ABS), which covers businesses with paid employees, and the Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics (NES-D), which covers businesses without paid employees.
According to the latest figures for 2023, there were 36.4 million U.S. employer and nonemployer businesses generating $50 trillion in receipts. Of these, women owned 14.2 million businesses with $2.8 trillion in receipts, while veterans owned 1.6 million businesses with $1 trillion in receipts.
The 2024 ABS reports that there were about 5.9 million employer firms in 2023. Of these firms, women owned approximately 1.4 million (22.9%), and veterans owned about 261,000 (4.4%).
Breakdowns by race show that White-owned firms made up 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; Hispanic-owned firms represented 8.4% (496,000) with $730.3 billion; Black or African American-owned firms comprised 3.4% (201,000) with $249 billion; American Indian or Alaska Native-owned firms made up 0.9% (55,000) with $70.8 billion; and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander-owned firms accounted for 0.2% (9,000) with $13.1 billion.
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 activities among microbusinesses as well as innovation and technology trends.
Data from the NES-D shows that there were 30.4 million nonemployer businesses in 2023 with total receipts of $1.8 trillion. Women owned about 12.9 million (42.3%) of these nonemployer businesses generating $423.1 billion in receipts; veteran-owned nonemployer businesses numbered around 1.4 million (4.5%) with receipts totaling $65.7 billion.
Further breakdowns indicate that White-owned nonemployer businesses made up 73.6% (22.4 million) of the total with $1.3 trillion in receipts; Hispanic-owned accounted for 17.5% (5.3 million) with $244 billion; Black or African American-owned represented 14.4% (4.4 million) with $128 billion; Asian-owned comprised 9 .2% (2 .8 million )with $163 .6 billion ; American Indian or Alaska Native -owned stood at 1 .2%(378 ,000 )with$15 .5billion ;and Native Hawaiian & Other Pacific Islander -owned at0 .3%(102 ,000 )with$4 .4billion .
Both surveys include additional details such as urban versus rural classification of business owners , employment size , receipt size , years in business ,and legal form of organization .
The NES-D uses administrative records along with decennial census data to link demographic characteristics to all nonemployer businesses meeting certain tax filing requirements .
“No news release is associated with this product,” according to the Census Bureau announcement.
