Report: Women-owned businesses jumped 3,000% since 1972

By Melissa Locker

August 22, 2018

There’s some good news trickling in about the state of women in the business world, and it’s not just about blazers made out of yoga pant fabric.

A new report looks at the overarching trends in women-owned businesses, and things have definitely improved since 1972, when the U.S. Census Bureau first started providing data on minority- and women-owned businesses. In AMEX’s 2018 State of Women-Owned Businesses report, the analysts found that the number of women-owned businesses—defined as businesses that are at least 51% owned, operated, and controlled by one or more females—increased 31 times since 1972, going from 402,000 to 12.3 million in 2018.

Here are some of the key findings:

    Over the last 11 years, all businesses increased by 12%, while the number of women-owned businesses surged 58%.

    Four out of every 10 businesses (40%) in the United States are now women-owned.

    It’s not just businesses owned by white women that are growing: The number of firms owned by minority women has grown 163% since 2007.

    As of 2018, women of color now own 47% of all women-owned businesses, generating an estimated $386.6 billion in revenues.

    All told, women-owned firms now employ some 9.2 million people, a 40-fold growth spurt from the 70s.

    Revenues rose from $8.1 billion to $1.8 trillion.

In other words, women in blazers or yoga pants or blazers made from yoga pants are having a tremendous impact on the U.S. economy.

 
 

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