Office of Advocacy A Voice for Small Business Small Business Profile: NEW YORK In New York, small businesses are vital to the financial wellbeing of the state’s economy. Their contribution is essential for economic growth since they make up almost all employer firms in the state. As entrepreneurs and innovators, small business owners represented a diverse group in 2004 and continued to keep the state’s economy productive. The Small Business Profile provides information on the performance of small businesses in the state using the most current federal data available. Number of Businesses. There were an estimated 1,779,932 small businesses in New York in 2004.1 Of the 481,858 firms with employees, an estimated 99 percent, or 477,260, were small firms. In 2004, the estimated number of employer businesses increased by 0.8 percent. The number of selfemployed persons (including incorporated) decreased overall by 0.3 percent, from 933,059 in 2003 to 930,238 in 2004. Non-employer businesses numbered 1,302,672 in 2002, an increase of 3.5 percent since 2001, based on the most recent data available. (Sources: U.S. Dept. of Labor, Employment and Training Administration; U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Census Bureau; U.S. Dept of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.) Women-Owned Businesses. In 2002 women-owned firms totaled 505,183, an increase of 28 percent from 1997, and generated $71.6 billion in revenues. Firms owned jointly by women and men numbered 129,465 with revenues of $39.3 billion. Women represented 31.5 percent of the selfemployed persons in the state. (Sources: U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics; U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Census Bureau.) Minority-Owned Businesses. In 2002, Hispanic-owned firms numbered 163,659, an increase of 57 percent from 1997. Black-owned firms numbered 129,339, an increase of 50 percent; Asian-owned firms numbered 145,626, an increase of 19 percent; American Indian and Alaska Nativeowned firms numbered 12,307, an increase of 91 percent; and there were 4,868 Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanderowned businesses.2 (Source: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Census Bureau.) Business Turnover. There were an estimated 62,854 new employer businesses in 2004, 3.8 percent more than the previous year. Business terminations numbered 64,013 in 2004, an increase of 4.6 percent. Business bankruptcies increased by 104.8 percent and totaled 4,070 in 2004. (Sources: U.S. Dept. of Labor, Employment and Training Administration; Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts; U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Census Bureau.) Employment. Small firms with fewer than 500 employees numbered 424,337 in 2002 and employed 3,756,372 individuals, or 51.9 percent of the state’s non-farm private sector (Table 1).3 Net job gains among firms with fewer than 20 employees totaled 69,573, while large firms with 500 or more employees lost 154,582 jobs between 2001 and 2002 (Table 2). (Source: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Census Bureau, Statistics of U.S. Businesses.) Small Business Income. Non-farm proprietors’ income, a partial measure of small business income, increased by 5.3 percent, from $70.9 billion in 2002 to $74.7 billion in 2003. (Source: U.S. Dept. of Commerce.) Finance. Commercial bank lenders are an important source of small business loans, and small firms usually rely on them for financing. Over the last 10 years the number of banks in New York has declined (Table 3). The Office of Advocacy has identified banks in each state that make the most loans to small businesses. This information is available in its banking studies at www.sba.gov/advo/research/lending.html. 1 The Office of Advocacy’s estimate of the total number of state small businesses is based on the percent of small businesses (2002 Census Bureau firm size data) multiplied by the total number of employer businesses in 2004 (Employment and Training Administration). To this total is added the 2002 number of non-employer firms (Census Bureau). See Business Estimates from the Office of Advocacy, www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs258tot.pdf. 2 Minority owners may be in more than one minority group. 3 The number of employers in Table 1 is not directly comparable to the figures in the Number of Businesses section due to different data sources. To learn more about the Office of Advocacy’s data and analyses of small business, visit www.sba.gov/advo/research, call (202) 205-6533 or email advocacy@sba.gov. Sign up at http://web.sba.gov/list for email delivery of: * Advocacy Newsletter * Advocacy Press * Advocacy Regulatory News * Advocacy Research For Really Simply Syndicated (RSS) feeds, visit www.sba.gov/advo/rsslibrary.html.