Small Business Statistics

For the recently concluded Small Business Week held in Washington DC on April 9-16, SBA prepared a compilation of statistics on small businesses:

Curiously though, one important stat that is missing from this list is the number of small businesses that fail in their first year, or in five years. I suppose SBA needed only to drum up the positive about small businesses and not include anything negative (after all, the President gave a speech during the ceremonies). Even then, when you talk of small business, failure is not too far behind. With majority of small businesses that fail, I think any decent compilation of stats on this sector should include this – and whether the failure rate is decreasing or increasing over time.

Click to read SBA’s Facts for Features press release