A new study has revealed that New York is second only to Florida when it comes to small businesses in the United States.
Business QR code generator Qrfy.com analyzed public data from the U.S. Census Bureau to find the percentage of registered businesses with fewer than five employees for each state throughout 2021. These results were then ranked to determine which states had the highest percentage of small businesses compared to other registered businesses.
Florida ranked first with 64% of all businesses being classified as small businesses. Out of 616,961 total registered establishments, 394,849 were found to have fewer than five employees. The annual payroll for all small businesses across Florida was $32,799,642,000, with an average of $83,068.82 per business.
In New York, 62.71% of all businesses are classified as small businesses. Out of 535,758 total registered, 335,950 had fewer than five employees. The annual payroll for all small businesses across the Empire State was $33,618,837,000, with an average of $100,070.95 per small business – the highest average payroll among the states in the top five.
Wyoming came in third with 61.83% of all businesses being classified as small businesses. Out of 22,474 total registered,13,896 had fewer than five employees. The annual payroll for all small businesses across Wyoming was $1,286,032,000, with an average of $92,546.91 per small business.
Montana ranked fourth with 61.54% of all businesses being classified as small businesses. Out of 40,716 total registered, 25,055 had fewer than five employees. The annual payroll for all small businesses across Montana was $1,935,268,000, with an average of $77,240.79 per small business.
Colorado was fifth with 60.93% of all businesses being classified as small businesses. Out of 179,827 total registered, 109,570 had fewer than five employees. The annual payroll for all small businesses across Colorado was $10,665,582,000, with an average of $97,340.34 per small business.
Rounding out the top 10 were Utah, California, Idaho, Maine and Alaska. (Connecticut was 36th, with 88,509 registered businesses, of which 53.75%, or 47,512, had fewer than five employees.)
Tennessee ranked last in the study, with only 49.19%, or 71,055, of all businesses (144,457) having fewer than five registered employees.
Qrfy.com CEO Marc Porcar said of the findings:
“It is interesting to see the extent to which smaller businesses contribute to the overall number of businesses in each state, especially when they are competing with far larger companies in the same industries. These figures are also from the end of the Covid-19 lockdown period, which may have influenced people to start their own small businesses (while) working from home.
“A possible explanation behind the top 10 results could be the higher living costs of states like Florida and New York, which may encourage people to be more entrepreneurial in order to make a living. Hopefully, we will see more…figures released for subsequent years to see whether these trends continue at all.”
