Of everything the federal government does that is supposed to work in support of small businesses, the one that is perhaps most direct is federal procurement. Not only is it the most direct, it has the potential to be the most effective. The best and most rational way for small businesses to increase their revenues [...]

Right around tax day, the National Small Business Association (NSBA) released the results of its 2011 Small Business Taxation Survey, because that’s what we all want to do at that time of year: talk taxes. The survey demonstrated yet another instance in which there was a critical microbusiness issue but, evidently, there weren’t very many [...]

Most U.S. business owners make a decision about the legal form of their business at startup and rarely change it within the first few years of operation. That is the principle finding of a new research report, entitled “How Do Firms Choose Legal Form of Organization?”, written by Rebal Cole with funding from the SBA [...]

As of this year, an estimated 8.1 million (29%) U.S. firms were women-owned (51% or more), generating almost $1.3 trillion in revenues and employing roughly 7.7 million people. That’s the main finding of an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data on women-owned businesses performed by our old friend Julie Weeks of Womenable.com for American Express [...]

Small business lending began stabilizing during the 2009-2010 period (although it didn’t seem like it to some small business owners and advocates), which is a euphemistic way of saying the rates of decline slowed over the period. That’s the big take-away from the latest annual release of the aptly named Small Business Lending in the [...]

One of the constant sources of partisan bickering on Capitol Hill these days has to do with how small businesses are doing and what might be needed to help them do better. In fact, Democrats and Republicans fight over that point so much lately that you might think they actually cared. On the other hand, [...]

Last week, the SBA Office of Advocacy released its annual report to the President on the State of Small Business for the year 2009. It must have been quite the chore for a year that many people would very much prefer to forget, which may account for the surprisingly political tone of the document. The [...]

Last week, the Census Bureau — which seems to have been very busy lately — released some preliminary estimates of business ownership numbers by gender and ethnicity, as well as by veteran status, from the 2007 Survey of Business Owners (SBO). The report, descriptively entitled Preliminary Estimates of Business Ownership by Gender, Ethnicity, Race and [...]

Last month, the SBA Office of Advocacy released a new research report entitled Bank Credit, Trade Credit or No Credit: Evidence from the Surveys of Small Business Finances, written by Rebel A. Cole with funding from Advocacy. Cole undertakes this research because there is almost nothing in the literature that examines small employer businesses that [...]

Last week was a good one, if you’re a data wonk. In addition to the firm size class numbers for 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau also released new nonemployer numbers for 2008. The surprising news about 2008 for nonemployers is that their numbers fell for the first time since Census has been keeping track. Which [...]