America Counts: Stories Behind the Numbers

Telling the Story of the Nation’s Smallest Businesses

The nation’s 29.8 million nonemployer businesses – those with no paid employees and are subject to federal income tax – made up $1.7 trillion or about 6.8% of the 2022 U.S. economy, according to the 2022 Nonemployer Statistics (NES) recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Most nonemployers are self-employed individuals operating small unincorporated businesses, which may be the owner’s principal source of income.

NES can be used to uncover facts about U.S. nonemployers, like how California had the largest number of nonemployer establishments (3,502,950) but ranked 16th per capita, that Texas had the most nonemployer construction establishments (376,379) or that Delaware nonemployers had the highest average receipts ($85,950) in the country.

In contrast, there were 8.3 million U.S. employer businesses (those with paid employees) in 2022, according to the Census Bureau’s 2022 County Business Patterns.

Continue reading to explore:

• State nonemployer rates
• Industry leaders
• Receipt values of small businesses

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