Fact of the Week: The U.S. Entrepreneurship Rate Reached a 24-year High of 19 percent in 2022

Source: Donna Kelley et al., “Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2022-2023 United States Report,” Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, August 2023.

Commentary: The latest edition of Babson College’s Global Entrepreneurship Monitor found that entrepreneurship in the United States reached its highest rate in 24 years. Covering 21 high-income countries with a per-capita GDP of at least $40,000, the survey shows entrepreneurship has been on the rise in the U.S. since 2015. (While there was a sharp decline in 2020 due to COVID, there has been a sustained recovery since 2021.) The survey found that 19 percent of U.S. working-age adults in 2022 were either running a business less than 42 months old or were in the process of establishing one. The authors noted this was the highest rate recorded since the first survey in 1999 and was the third-highest among the high-income countries surveyed. The survey also found the United States had the second-highest entrepreneurship rate among women and the third-narrowest gender gap.

There was a notable shift away from the service sector. The report found that financial, real estate, and business services made up 16 percent of the new businesses in 2022, down from 30 percent in 2020. At the same time, manufacturing and logistics increased to 19 percent in 2022 from 12 percent in 2020. Information and communication technology industries also saw an increase to 6.8 percent in 2022 from 4.6 percent in 2020.