The United States Census Bureau has recently released new information on the demographics of the country’s nonemployer business owners as of 2022. Informed by the Annual Business Survey’s accompanying dataset, Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics, the report provides insights into the characteristics of businesses without paid employees that have annual receipts of at least $1,000 and file federal income tax forms.
In 2022, there were 29.8 million nonemployer businesses in the United States with receipts totaling $1.7 trillion. Some 12.7 million of these firms were owned by women, equating to 42.7 percent of all American businesses without employees. Women-owned nonemployer firms had receipts totaling $411.6 billion, which translates to about a quarter of all nonemployer business receipts in 2022.
Notably, the share of women in the United States who own nonemployer businesses is significantly higher than the share who own employer businesses. Earlier this year, the Census Bureau reported that about one-fifth of all employer businesses in 2022 were owned by women.
Detailed information about other characteristics of nonemployer businesses in the United States can be found here.