The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data detailing the demographic characteristics of business owners in the United States, including information on sex, race, ethnicity, and veteran status. For the first time, this data set includes estimates of employer firms by owner characteristics, industry sector, and congressional district.
The data comes from two main sources: the Annual Business Survey (ABS), which focuses on businesses with paid employees, and the Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics (NES-D), which covers businesses without paid employees. Combined, these sources provide a comprehensive view of business ownership across the country.
According to the findings for 2023, there were 36.4 million employer and nonemployer businesses in the U.S., generating $50 trillion in receipts. Women owned 14.2 million of these businesses, accounting for $2.8 trillion in receipts. Veterans owned 1.6 million businesses with $1 trillion in receipts.
The ABS indicates that there were about 5.9 million employer firms in 2023. Of these, women owned 1.4 million (22.9%) and veterans owned 261,000 (4.4%).
Demographic breakdowns show that 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; 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 were 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 conducted jointly by the Census Bureau and the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). It collects annual data on research and development among microbusinesses as well as select economic and demographic information about business owners based on sex, ethnicity, race, and veteran status.
The NES-D data shows that there were 30.4 million nonemployer businesses in 2023 with total receipts of $1.8 trillion. Of these nonemployer businesses, women owned approximately 12.9 million (42.3%), generating $423.1 billion in receipts; veteran-owned nonemployers numbered about 1.4 million (4.5%) with $65.7 billion in receipts.
Additional highlights from the NES-D include:
– White-owned nonemployer businesses made up 73.6% (22.4 million), earning $1.3 trillion.
– Hispanic-owned nonemployer businesses represented 17.5% (5.3 million), bringing in $244.2 billion.
– Black or African American-owned nonemployers accounted for 14.4% (4.4 million), earning $128.7 billion.
– Asian-owned nonemployers comprised 9.2% (2.8 million), generating $163.6 billion.
– American Indian or Alaska Native-owned nonemployers made up 1.2% (378,000), earning $15.5 billion.
– Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander-owned nonemployers accounted for 0 .3% (102 ,000 ), earning $4 .4 billion .
This release also provides information about urban and rural classifications of business owners as well as receipt size of firm and legal form of organization such as sole proprietorships or partnerships.
The NES-D series uses administrative records along with decennial census data to link demographic characteristics to all U.S . nonemployer businesses—those filing federal income tax returns with at least $1 ,000 in annual receipts .
For more details on how demographic characteristics are assigned to nonemployer businesses , refer to the NES-D methodology .
No formal news release was issued alongside this product.
