The most recent Small Business Profiles for the States and Territories—published in January 2009 captures the economic activity and condition of small businesses of each state including the U.S. Territories.
Differences among the states reinforce the “regional” nature of the U.S. and the possible perils of assuming national trends apply to our neighborhoods.
Some bits of information from this edition include:
Small businesses employ 44% of the workforce in Florida (the low end of the range), and they employ 69.8% of Montana’s workforce (the high end). Louisiana had the highest increase in non-employer firms during 2005-2006, while Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Alaska and Kansas were states with declines during this time period.
The unemployment rate in Hawaii was the lowest at 2.6 percent–well below the national average of 4.6 percent; meanwhile Michigan had the highest rate 7.2 percent. Hawaii recorded over 100 percent increase in business bankruptcy while Oregon and Wyoming had a decrease.
The value of this annual publication is the state level information that it provides about small businesses on the number of firms, demographics of business ownership, small business income, banking, business turnover, industry composition, employment gains and losses.
Detailed historical data may be found in the Small Business Economic Indicators and the Small Business Economy reports.
— Victoria Williams, Economist