With this being National Small Business Week (May 24-28, 1999), we thought it would be appropriate to highlight some of the key issues regarding
small business, entrepreneurs and the U.S. economy:

The U.S. is an increasingly entrepreneurial nation, with the total number of U.S. businesses jumping by better than 68% between 1980 and 1996,
according to IRS data.  Meanwhile, the U.S. population grew by only 17% over the same period.

Small businesses create the bulk of new jobs-ranging from two-thirds to more than 100% of net new jobs created (often large businesses shed jobs) in
any given year.

On the trade front, the U.S. Department of Commerce has reported that 96% of U.S. exporters are small to mid-sized companies, while the SBA has noted
that 86% of firms involved in international trade are wholesalers and other intermediaries which are typically small businesses.

The SBA reports that more than 52% of the U.S. workforce is employed by businesses with fewer than 500 employees, and almost 20% are employed by
firms with fewer than 20 employees.

The SBA estimates that small businesses account for 51% of private-sector output, supply 55% of innovations, and represent 99.7% of all employers.

After suffering through the doldrums in the very late 1980s and into the early 1990s, U.S. new business incorporations have been recovering quite nicely, hitting a record 798,917 in 1997, according to Dun & Bradstreet.

In 1999, surveyed members of the Small Business Survival Committee have identified the following as their primary issues of concern:

General Taxes 22%
Death Tax 18%
Regulations16%
Government Spending 10%
Health Care 7%
Payroll Taxes 7%
Other 20%
 
("Other" includes OSHA, antitrust, technology, privacy, e-commerce, Social Security, workforce development, government reform and Y2K.)

According to the March 1997 Current Population Survey, the median 1996 annual income for the non-farm self-employed was $23,754, with the percentage of self-employed people earning over $100,000 was just 5%.

Meanwhile, practically everyone in Congress heaps praise on small business, but only one U.S. Senator and 15 members of the House of Representatives
scored a perfect 100% when it came to SBSC's ratings of voting records in the 105th Congress.