By Monica Braun, Center for Rural Affairs
(Nov. 2015) A National Women’s Business Council analysis of U.S. Census data from the 2012 Survey of Business Owners shows significant growth since 2007. As of 2012, there are 9.9 million women-owned businesses – a 27.5 percent rise.
The analysis also showed that Women-owned businesses generated 1.6 trillion in total receipts, which is up from 1.2 trillion in 2007; an increase of 35 percent.
For comparison, male-owned businesses saw an increase of 33 percent, while sole proprietorships account for 89.4 percent of businesses owned by women. Employee hiring has also increased by 19.5 percent.
African-American women own more than 1.5 million businesses across the U.S., a 67.5 percent jump from 2007. There are 1.48 million Hispanic women-owned businesses in the U.S, an increase of 87.31 percent since 2007. And 754,874 Asian American women own businesses, up 44.3 percent from 2007.
Another area of tremendous growth was in veteran women-owned businesses, which increased by 206 percent from 2007 to a total of 384,548 businesses nationwide.
More than 100 Women’s Business Centers across the country offer counseling, business training and other services to women in business in all 50 states.
Visit www.cfra.org for more information.