LINK DOWNLOAD MIỄN PHÍ TÀI LIỆU "Tài liệu I MMIGRANT S MALL B USINESS OWNERS: A S IGNIFICANT AND G ROWING PART OF THE E CONOMY pdf": http://123doc.vn/document/1045194-tai-lieu-i-mmigrant-s-mall-b-usiness-owners-a-s-ignificant-and-g-rowing-part-of-the-e-conomy-pdf.htm
FPI June 2012 1
Executive Summary
Immigrant entrepreneurship is widely recog-
nized as an important aspect of the economic
role immigrants play. Surprisingly, until now,
there has been relatively little basic informa-
tion available about the number and character-
istics of immigrant small business owners.
This report breaks new ground in identifying
small immigrant businesses and immigrant
small business owners. It gives a detailed
prole of who immigrant business owners
are, based primarily on two data sources: the
Survey of Business Owners (SBO), looking at
businesses with between 1 and 99 employees;
and the American Community Survey (ACS),
looking at people who own an incorporated
business and whose main job is running that
business.
Immigrant-owned small businesses:
4.7 million employees, $776 billion in receipts
Small businesses—rms with at least one and
fewer than 100 people working for them—
employed 35 million people in 2007, accord-
ing to the most recent SBO, accounting for 30
percent of all private-sector employment.
Of these small businesses, rms for which
half or more of the owners are immigrants
employed an estimated 4.7 million people,
14 percent of all people employed by small
business owners. These rms generated an esti-
mated total of $776 billion in receipts in 2007,
the most recent year for which these data are
available.
18 percent of small business owners
in the United States are immigrants
Looking at small business owners rather than
small businesses, we can see that there are
900,000 immigrant small business owners in
the United States, 18 percent of the 4.9 mil-
lion small business owners overall. These data
come from the 2010 ACS, where we dene
business owners as people who own an incor-
porated business and whose main job is to run
that business.
The immigrant share of small business own-
ers, at 18 percent, is higher than the immigrant
share of the overall population (13 percent)
and the immigrant share of the labor force (16
percent).
More than half—57 percent—of these small
businesses have at least one paid employee in
addition to the owner, the same share for both
U.S and foreign-born business owners. And,
of those with employees, the average number
of employees is 13.6 (11.0 for immigrants,
13.9 for U.S born).*
More immigrant business owners in
professional and business services
than in any other sector
The largest number of immigrant business
owners are in the professional and business
services sector (141,000 business owners),
followed by retail (121,000), construc-
tion (121,000), educational and social ser-
vices (100,000), and leisure and hospitality
(100,000).
Within the broad sectors, the types of small
businesses most commonly owned by immi-
grant business owners are restaurants, physi-
cian’s ofces, real estate rms, grocery stores,
and truck transportation services.
* Number of small business owners and the 1990 to
2010 trend are based on the 2010 ACS 1-year estimate.
All other ACS data are from an ACS 2010 5-year esti-
mates—which includes data from the years 2006-10—to
allow for greater detail. Share of people who own an
incorporated business and are self-employed, as well as
average number of employees, are from CPS Contingent
Work Supplement (2005).
2 FPI June 2012
Immigrant Small Business Owners
Immigrants are also playing a disproportion-
ate role in some industries. The sector where
immigrants make up the biggest share of small
business owners is leisure and hospitality. Im-
migrants represent 28 percent of small busi-
ness owners in leisure and hospitality. Within
leisure and hospitality, immigrants make up
43 percent of hotel and motel owners, and 37
percent of restaurant owners.
Other types of businesses where immigrants
are strongly overrepresented include taxi
service rms (65 percent of owners are immi-
grants), dry cleaning and laundry services (54
percent), gas station owners (53 percent), and
grocery store owners (49 percent). Interest-
ingly, immigrants are underrepresented among
construction business owners, though they are
highly overrepresented among construction
workers.
Immigrants are more likely to be business
owners, but their businesses tend to be smaller
In all, immigrant small business owners had
$63 billion in annual personal income, accord-
ing to the ACS 5-year estimate, 15 percent
of the $419 billion in personal earnings from
small businesses overall (in wage and salary
plus proprietor’s earnings). Immigrant business
owners tend to have smaller businesses than
U.S born owners, as indicated by a smaller
share of earnings than of the number of busi-
ness owners.
30 percent of recent small business growth is
due to immigrants
Over the past two decades, between 1990 and
2010, the number of small business owners
grew by 1.8 million, from 3.1 to 4.9 million.
Immigrants made up 30 percent of that growth,
as the immigrant share of small business
owners kept in step with the increasing im-
migrant share of the labor force. As a result,
there were 539,000 more immigrant small
business owners in 2010 than in 1990. In the
Great Recession, both U.S and foreign-born
small business owners suffered, but there is
some indication that the number of small busi-
ness owners is gradually beginning to increase
again.
Mexicans make up biggest number of business
owners, while immigrants from Middle East,
Asia, and Southern Europe playing a dispro-
portionate role
Mexican immigrants are less likely than other
groups to be small business owners, perhaps
in part because a high share of Mexican immi-
grants are not legally authorized to work in the
United States.
Yet there are nonetheless more small business
owners from Mexico than from any other sin-
gle country. This is no surprise, perhaps, given
the size of the Mexican population, though
this does not seem to be the common image of
immigrant small business owners. Immigrants
born in Mexico make up 12 percent of im-
migrant small business owners, followed by
immigrants born in India, Korea, Cuba, China,
and Vietnam.
Immigrants from some countries—including
some with relatively small numbers in the
overall population—are disproportionately
likely to be business owners. Immigrants from
the Middle East, Asia, and Southern Europe
are particularly inclined toward business own-
ership. Immigrants from Greece, for example,
are a tiny fraction of all immigrants in the la-
bor force, but 16 percent of Greek immigrants
in the labor force are business owners—the
highest share of any group. Immigrants born
in Israel/Palestine (the Census does not disag-
gregate the two) are the group with the second-
highest rate of business ownership, followed
by Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Italy, Korea,
South Africa, Ireland, Iraq, Pakistan, and Tur-
key.
Immigrant Small Business Owners
FPI June 2012 3
The overall rate of small business ownership
for immigrants is 3.5 percent, and for U.S
born it is 3.3 percent.
Immigrants who have been here longer are
more likely to own businesses
As immigrants develop roots and become more
established in the United States, they become
correspondingly more likely to own a business.
Immigrants who have been here for over 10
years are more than twice as likely to be small
business owners as those who have been here
for 10 years or less. That is particularly true for
some groups. For example, just 2 percent of
more recently arrived immigrants from India
are small business owners, while 9 percent of
longer-established immigrants from India are
small business owners.
Most immigrant business owners do not have a
college degree
There has been a great deal of focus in national
immigration debates on whether preferences
should be given to highly educated immi-
grants. In relation to entrepreneurship, indeed,
better-educated immigrants are more likely to
be business owners: 5.4 percent of immigrants
with a college degree or more are business
owners, compared to 2.8 percent of those with-
out a college degree.
Yet, the majority of immigrant small business
owners, like the majority of their U.S born
counterparts, do not have a college degree.
Fifty-eight percent of immigrant small busi-
ness owners do not have a degree, about the
same as for U.S born small business owners
(56 percent).
Immigrant business owners are most likely to
be white, Asian, or Latino
Among immigrant business owners, roughly
equal numbers are white (34 percent), Asian
(31 percent), and Latino (28 percent), with
another 5 percent blacks and 2 percent identi-
fying their race as “other.”
White and Asian immigrants are considerably
more likely to be small business owners than
black or Latino immigrants—and, indeed,
also much more likely than U.S born work-
ers. Among immigrants in the labor force, 6.8
percent of whites and 4.7 percent of Asians are
small business owners. By contrast, 2.0 percent
of Latino immigrants in the labor force and 2.1
percent of black immigrants are small business
owners. The share for U.S born overall is 3.3
percent, and for U.S born whites, the high-
est among U.S born groups, the gure is 3.8
percent.
Immigrant women closing the ownership gap
Immigrant women are playing a particularly
important role as small business owners.
Women are underrepresented as business
owners among both immigrants and U.S born
workers. However, the gender gap is slightly
lower among immigrants than among U.S
born women. Twenty-nine percent of foreign-
born business owner are women, as are 28
percent of U.S born business owners. Both
U.S and foreign-born women have made
modest progress toward closing this gender
gap: In 1990, 24 percent of U.S born business
owners were women, as were 26 percent of
foreign-born business owners.
Foreign-born women in all racial/ethnic groups
are at least slightly more likely than their U.S
born counterparts to be small business owners.
Foreign-born white and Asian women are par-
ticularly likely to be small business owners.
4 FPI June 2012
Immigrant Small Business Owners
Immigrant business owners in the 25 largest
metropolitan areas and 50 states
Immigrant business owners are playing a big-
ger role in some parts of the country than oth-
ers. Among the 25 largest metropolitan areas,
Miami has the largest immigrant share of busi-
ness owners: 45 percent of business owners in
metro Miami are immigrants. This is followed
by metro Los Angeles (44 percent), metro New
York (36 percent), and metro San Francisco
(35 percent). In virtually all metro areas, the
ratio of immigrant small business ownership to
U.S born business ownership is quite close. It
is 1.1 overall, meaning that immigrants are 10
percent more likely than U.S born workers to
be small business owners.
Among the 50 states plus the District of Co-
lumbia, the highest concentration of immigrant
business owners is in California, where a third
(33 percent) of all small business owners are
immigrants. California is followed by New
York, New Jersey, Florida, and Hawaii. Ari-
zona, a state that has been much in the news
in recent months due to a controversial state
immigration enforcement law, is 15th on this
list, there are a total of 16,000 immigrant small
business owners in Arizona.
Immigrant small business owners are playing
a large role in today’s economy, a role that has
grown over the past 20 years in step with the
increasing immigrant share of the labor force.
Immigrant small business owners contribute
to economic growth, to employment, and to
producing the goods and services that support
our standard of living.
With one in six small business owners being
born in another country, it is clear that immi-
grants are an important part of America’s small
business environment. Immigrants bring ideas,
connections to new markets, and a spirit of en-
trepreneurship with them to the United States.
Understanding who the one million immigrant
small business owners are—what countries
they come from, what kinds of businesses they
own, their level of educational attainment, and
more—can only help as the country struggles
to achieve a better set of immigration policies.
Immigrant Small Business Owners
FPI June 2012 5
Introduction
Overview
Immigrant entrepreneurship is widely recog-
nized as an important aspect of the economic
role immigrants play. Surprisingly, until now,
there has been little comprehensive analysis of
the number and characteristics of immigrant
business owners.
This report will use look at two different
angles on immigrant entrepreneurship, using
two related data sets.
First, we look at small businesses—rms with
at least one but fewer than 100 employees.
What share are these small businesses of the
overall economy, and what is the role of im-
migrants in them?
Second—and for the larger part of this re-
port—we look at the immigrant small business
owners. Who are immigrant small business
owners: what countries do they come from,
what is their level of educational attainment,
what kinds of businesses do they own? To get
this demographic information, we focus on
people who own an incorporated business and
whose main job is to run that business.
These two concepts—small businesses and
small business owners—are closely related but
not identical. For a detailed discussion of the
data sources from which they are drawn, see
Appendix A.
Note: Throughout this report, the terms “im-
migrant” and “foreign-born” are used inter-
changeably. Data about immigrants refers to
people residing in the United States who were
born in another country, regardless of their
legal status. The data does not separate docu-
mented from undocumented immigrants; how-
ever, the number of undocumented immigrants
who own a business is likely to be relatively
small, and those who own an incorporated
business smaller still.
When looking at race and ethnic groups,
“White” refers to non-Hispanic white, “black”
to non-Hispanic black, and “Asian” to non-
Hispanic Asian. The terms “Latino” and
“Hispanic” are used interchangeably, as is the
practice in the Census data.
6 FPI June 2012
Immigrant Small Business Owners
*The SBO reports 117 million people employed by
rms. This is nearly the same number shown in the Cur-
rent Employment Statistics from 2007 as total private-
sector employment—115 million; in both cases 35
million is a 30 percent share.
1. Small businesses
Small businesses—privately held rms with
between 1 and 99 employees—are an impor-
tant part of the nation’s economy. In all, 35
million people work for these small businesses,
according to the Survey of Business own-
ers (SBO), conducted every ve years, most
recently in 2007. This represents 30 percent of
the 117 million people the SBO reports work-
ing for all businesses—publicly held, nonprof-
it, and privately held rms.* [Figure 1.]
And, small businesses are responsible for $6
trillion in receipts in 2007, or 21 percent of the
$29 trillion total receipts of all businesses.
The balance of the private-sector economy—
about two thirds of private-sector workers and
about 80 percent of receipts—is made up of
publicly held companies (the largest share),
privately held businesses with over 100 em-
ployees, nonprot employers (such as hospi-
tals, churches; or civic groups), and people
who are self-employed but do not have a busi-
ness with employees.
Within this small business sector, immigrants
are playing an important role. Small busi-
nesses where half or more of the owners are
immigrants generated at least $591 billion in
receipts in 2007. For more than a quarter of
rms, however, the nativity of the ownership is
not reported to the SBO. A likely overall esti-
mate of receipts by rms in which immigrants
are at least half of the ownership is $776 bil-
lion. This gure is calculated by applying the
share of receipts for which nativity of owners
is known (13 percent) to the receipts for which
nativity is not known. [Figure 2.]
Small businesses
• 35 million people work for small busi-
nesses—rms with at least one but under
100 employees. This represents 30 per-
cent of total private-sector employment.
• Small businesses where immigrants
make up half or more of the owners gen-
erated an estimated $776 billion in an-
nual receipts (and at least $591 billion).
• Small businesses where immigrants
make up half or more of the owners em-
ployed an estimated total of 4.7 million
employees, and employed at least 3.5
million people.
Figure 1.
Source: Fiscal Policy Institute analysis of Survey of
Business Owners (SBO) 2007. Note: Some rms that are
classied as having employees had zero employees at
the date of the survey—shown in the bottom row.
Small businesses make up nearly a
third of private-sector employment
2007 SBO
Firms with employees at
date of survey
Firms
(1,000)
Receipts
(trillions)
Employment
(millions)
Payroll
(billions)
All firms classifiable by
characteristics of owners
(privately held firms)
4,615 $9.9 57 $1,911
1-99 employees
(small businesses)
4,551 $6.0 35 $1,180
100-499 employees 57 $1.9 1 1 $381
500 or more 7 $1.9 1 1 $350
Publicly held firms,
nonprofits, and others not
classifiable by ownership
502 $19.0 61 $2,876
Total with employees at
time of survey
5,116 29 117 4,787
Small businesses (1-99
employees) as a share of
all firms with employees
89% 21% 30% 25%
Firms with employees that
had no employees as of
date of survey
619 $0.2 0 $35
Immigrant Small Business Owners
FPI June 2012 7
And, small businesses with half or more of the
ownership foreign-born employed at least 3.5
million people, and a likely estimate is 4.7 mil-
lion (again applying the proportions of cases
where nativity of owners is known to those
where it is not known). Firms where half or
more of the owners are immigrants account for
14 percent of employment among those rms
where ownership is known. [Figure 3.]
Receipts in
billions
Share of
those
with
known
nativity
of
owners
Majority native-born $3,971 87%
Immigrant ownership at least half $591 13%
Majority foreign-born $517 11%
Equally foreign-/native-born $74 2%
Foreign-born status indeterminate $1,427
Additional foreign-born, if
indeterminate follows same
pattern
$185
Estimated total foreign-born
ownership
$776
Total of privately owned firms
with 100 employees or fewer
$5,989
Employment
Share of
those
with
known
nativity
of owners
Majority native-born 22,214,104 86%
Immigrant ownership at least half 3,478,441 14%
Majority foreign-born 2,965,561 12%
Equally foreign-/native-born 512,880 2%
Foreign-born status indeterminate 9,350,796
Additional foreign-born, if
indeterminate follows same
pattern
1,265,978
Estimated total foreign-born
ownership
4,744,419
Total of privately owned firms with
100 employees or fewer
35,043,340
$776 billion in estimated receipts of
immigrant-owned businesses
2007 SBO
4.7 million estimated employees of
immigrant-owned rms
2007 SBO
Figure 2.
Fiscal Policy Institute analysis of Survey of Business
Owners (SBO) 2007.
Figure 3.
Source: Fiscal Policy Institute analysis of Survey of
Business Owners (SBO) 2007.
8 FPI June 2012
Immigrant Small Business Owners
2. Small business owners
To look at the detailed demographic and other
characteristics of business owners, we will turn
to the American Community Survey. Here, we
dene small business owners as people who
own an incorporated business and whose main
job is to run that business. More than half have
at least one employee—57 percent, according
to the Current Population Survey Contingent
Work Supplement from 2005 (a gure that is
the same for U.S and foreign-born).
Among those rms with at least one paid
employee, the average number of people em-
ployed is 13.6 (11.0, for foreign-born business
owners, and 13.9 for U.S born owners). Ef-
fectively all of these are businesses with under
100 employees (98 percent for foreign-born
owners, 99 percent for U.S born owners, for a
total of 99 percent overall). We will thus refer
to them here as small business owners.
Of the 4.9 million small business owners in
the United States, 18 percent, or 900,000, are
immigrants, according to the American Com-
munity Survey (ACS) 2010.
The immigrant share of business owners is thus
considerably higher than the immigrant share
of the population (13 percent), and slightly
higher than the immigrant share of the overall
labor force (16 percent). [Figure 4.]
The following sections will focus in some
depth on this population of immigrant business
owners. Where we look at trends—and in the
data for gure 3—we use the ACS single-year
estimates. To delve more fully into details such
as country of origin and level of educational
attainment we will rely on the ACS 5-year esti-
mates, a cross-sectional data sample that com-
bines the years 2006 to 2010, giving sufcient
sample size to retain statistical signicance in
looking at small populations.
Small business owners
• Of the 4.9 million small business own-
ers in the United States, 900,000, or 18
percent, are immigrants.
• Immigrant share of business owners is
higher than immigrant share of the popu-
lation (13 percent) and of the labor force
(16 percent).
• Immigrant business owners have $63
billion in annual earned income, 15 per-
cent of the $419 billion of earned income
of business owners overall.
• The majority of these (57 percent) are
small businesses with at least one em-
ployee. Virtually all have fewer than 100
employees. Among those with at least one
employee, the average number employed
is 11 for immigrant business owners and
14 for U.S born business owners.
900,000 immigrant business owners
2010 ACS
Figure 4.
Source: Fiscal Policy Institute analysis of the 2010
American Community Survey (ACS), 1-year estimate.
“Population” is total population, all ages. Labor force is
civilian labor force 16 years and older.
Population Labor Force
Business
owners
US-Born 269,432,814 130,511,865 4,035,346
Foreign-Born 39,916,875 25,461,093 899,842
Total 309,349,689 155,972,958 4,935,188
Foreign-born
share
13% 16% 18%
Immigrant Small Business Owners
FPI June 2012 9
Figure 5.
Source: FPI analysis of 2010 ACS 5-year estimate. Note
that the 5-year estimate shows a total of 17 percent of all
small business owners are immigrants, while the 2010
1-year estimate shows an 18 percent share.
Types of businesses of immigrant
business owners
Immigrant small business owners are play-
ing an important role among a wide variety of
industries.
The largest number of immigrant business
owners are in professional and business ser-
vices, with 141,000 immigrant small busi-
ness owners. This is followed by retail trade
(122,000), construction (121,000), educational
and social services (100,000), and leisure and
hospitality (100,000), according to the ACS
2010 5-year estimate. [Figure 5.]
The highest concentration of immigrants are
in leisure and hospitality (where immigrants
make up a large share of hotel and restaurant
owners), with immigrant business owners
making up 28 percent of the total. Immigrants
make up 26 percent of business owners in
transportation and warehousing, and 22 percent
in retail trade.
To a surprising extent, immigrants are spread
across all the broad occupational categories:
immigrants make up between 12 and 28 per-
cent of small business owners in every broad
industrial category except agriculture and min-
ing.*
To get a ner-grained sense of the types of
businesses owned by immigrants, Figure 6
shows the top 10 detailed industries of immi-
grant small business owners.
Type of businesses owned by
immigrant business owners
2010 ACS 5-year estimate
* Note that the 2010 5-year estimate shows immigrants
having a 17 percent overall share of small business own-
ers, while the 2010 1-year estimate shows an 18 percent
share. This may be because of a slight uptick in recent
years, although such a small difference should be read
with caution.
Small business ownership
by broad industry
US-Born
Foreign-
Born
All
Foreign-
born
share
Professional and business
services
926,677 140,945 1,067,622 13%
Retail trade 433,530 121,694 555,224 22%
Construction 737,505 121,076 858,581 14%
Educational, health and social
services
396,928 100,014 496,942 20%
Leisure and hospitality 254,833 99,710 354,543 28%
Other Services 260,875 68,687 329,562 21%
Finance, insurance, and real
estate
439,580 60,489 500,069 12%
Transportation and
warehousing
140,623 48,658 189,281 26%
Wholesale trade 183,834 47,180 231,014 20%
Manufacturing 237,552 41,449 279,001 15%
Information and
communications
62,150 8,444 70,594 12%
Agriculture, forestry, fishing
and hunting
141,124 6,938 148,062 5%
Mining 15,528 515 16,043 3%
Total 4,230,749 865,799 5,096,548 17%
Foreign-
Born
Foreign-
born
share
Restaurants and other food services 76,915 37%
Offices of physicians 37,072 26%
Real estate 34,964 13%
Grocery stores 23,599 49%
Truck transportation 21,434 20%
Computer systems design and related services 20,000 20%
Management, scientific, and
technical consulting services
19,556
11%
Services to buildings and dwellings 18,979 24%
Automotive repair and maintenance 18,328 17%
Landscaping services 16,708 17%
All other 578,244 15%
Total 865,799 17%
Top 10 businesses of immigrant
business owners (detailed industry)
2010 ACS 5-year estimate
Figure 6.
Source: FPI analysis of 2010 ACS 5-year estimate. (No
detailed industries for construction—see text.)
10 FPI June 2012
Immigrant Small Business Owners
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are more immi-
grant restaurant owners than any other cat-
egory of small business owners. It may be less
obvious, however, that the next two categories
of small business owners are doctors (physi-
cians with their own practice) and real estate
businesses. Grocery stores, truck transporta-
tion, computer systems design, management
consulting, building services, automotive
repair, and landscaping ll out the top 10 list.
Construction is excluded from this list, since
there are no detailed industries in the ACS
industry breakdown. It is also worth noting that
some broad industries give far greater detail
than others. There are 279,000 immigrants
with small businesses in manufacturing, for
example, but no single detailed category makes
the top 10 list, because the detailed industry
categories are so specic. See Appendix B for
a full list of detailed industry categories and
how they t into the broad industries.
In some detailed industries, immigrant small
business owners are playing an outsized role.
Figure 6 shows where immigrants make up
more than double their overall concentration.
Immigrants are more than half of all small
business owners with taxi services (65 per-
cent), dry cleaning and laudry services (54
percent) and gasoline stations (53 percent), and
very nearly half of small business owners with
grocery stores (49 percent). [Figure 7.]
Many of these are smaller businesses, yet it is
striking how much many of the types of busi-
nesses on this list—restaurants, grocery stores,
gas stations, nail salons—are the everyday
businesses that can help add to a community’s
character and sense of vibrancy.
Where immigrant small business
owners are most concentrated
2010 ACS 5-year estimate
Figure 7.
Source: FPI analysis of 2010 ACS 5-year estimate. De-
tailed industries where immigrants make up more than
double their average concentration, and where there are
at least 1,000 immigrant small-business owners.
Foreign-
Born
Foreign-
born
Taxi and limousine service 13,475 65%
Dry cleaning and laundry services 10,912 54%
Gasoline stations 11,331 53%
Grocery stores 23,599 49%
Miscellaneous general merchandise stores 2,447 47%
Cut and sew apparel manufacturing 2,869 45%
Apparel, fabrics, and notions,
merchant wholesalers
4,442 44%
Traveler accommodation 8,325 43%
Beer, wine, and liquor stores 5,633 42%
Bakeries, except retail 1,515 41%
Nail salons and other personal care services 9,411 37%
Restaurants and other food services 76,915 37%
All other 694,836 15%
Total 865,799 17%
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét