America Counts: Stories Behind the Numbers

Revised Sept. 20, 2018

Note: The headline was updated with correct information. Please disregard any previous versions. 

Three-fourths of the Nation’s Businesses Don’t Have Paid Employees

You could look at the total number of establishments in the United States using just the U.S. Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns (CBP) data. But if you did, you would only be getting a partial view of the economic landscape.

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That’s because CBP only provides data on businesses that have employees on their payroll. But, in 2016, only 23.8 percent of the 32,570,855 establishments in the United States had paid employees.

That means the remaining 76.2 percent of establishments were nonemployers or establishments that don’t have any paid employees. And those data come from the 2016 Nonemployer Statistics (NES).

The America Counts Team

About America Counts

America Counts tells the stories behind the numbers in a new inviting way. It features stories on various topics such as families, housing, employment, business, education, the economy, emergency preparedness, and population. Contact our Public Information Office for media inquiries or interviews. 

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