The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data detailing the characteristics of business owners in the United States, including information on sex, race, ethnicity, and veteran status. For the first time, the data also provides estimates of employer firms by owner characteristics, industry sector, and congressional district.
The information is drawn from two sources: the Annual Business Survey (ABS), which covers businesses with paid employees, and the Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics (NES-D), which focuses on businesses without paid employees. Together, these sources offer a comprehensive view of business owner demographics across the country.
In 2023, there were 36.4 million employer and nonemployer businesses in the U.S., generating $50 trillion in receipts. Of these businesses, women owned 14.2 million with $2.8 trillion in receipts. 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; women owned 1.4 million (22.9%) and veterans owned 261,000 (4.4%). The release also includes demographic breakdowns by urban and rural classification, employment size, receipt size, and years in business.
White-owned firms represented 80.6% (4.8 million) of employer businesses with $17 trillion in receipts. Asian-owned firms made up 11.5% (685,000) with $1.2 trillion in receipts; Hispanic-owned firms accounted for 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 accounted for 0.9% (55,000) with $70.8 billion; Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander-owned firms made up 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 conducted jointly with the Census Bureau to measure research and development among microbusinesses as well as innovation and technology trends.
According to NES-D data for 2023, there were approximately 30.4 million nonemployer businesses bringing in $1.8 trillion in receipts nationwide; women owned about 12.9 million (42.3%) of these businesses with $423 billion in receipts while veterans owned around 1.4 million (4.5%) accounting for $65 billion.
Other findings indicate that White-owned nonemployer firms comprised nearly three-quarters of such businesses at 73% (22 million), Hispanic-owned made up roughly one-sixth at about five million or more than one-sixth of all nonemployers nationwide; Black or African American-owners operated over four million such enterprises while Asian-owners ran nearly three million.
NES-D uses administrative records along with decennial census data to connect demographic details to nonemployer business owners annually.
For further details on how demographic characteristics are assigned to nonemployer businesses or additional methodological notes about NES-D series collection processes can be found through official Census Bureau resources.
