Authors: Robert Fairlie and Sameeksha Desai

Special thanks: Kim Wallace Carlson, Kim Farley, Lacey Graverson, AJ Herrmann, Travis Howe, Hayden Murray, Kayla Smalley

Suggested citation: Fairlie, Robert and Sameeksha Desai (2020) 2019 Early-Stage Entrepreneurship in the United States, Kauffman Indicators of Entrepreneurship, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation: Kansas City.

This is a report published by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation utilizing content and data from multiple sources and external contributors. Every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of the information contained in this report, and it is believed to be correct as of the publication date. Nonetheless, this material is for informational purposes, and you are solely responsible for validating the applicability and accuracy of the information in any use you make of it.

This report presents four indicators tracking early-stage entrepreneurship for the years 1996–2019: rate of new entrepreneurs reflects the number of new entrepreneurs in a given month, opportunity share of new entrepreneurs is the percentage of new entrepreneurs who created their businesses out of opportunity instead of necessity, startup early job creation is the total number of jobs created by startups per capita, and startup early survival rate is the one-year average survival rate for new firms. State level trends are reported for all four indicators.

• Nationally, the rate of new entrepreneurs in 2019 was 0.31 percent, meaning that an average of 310 out of every 100,000 adults became new entrepreneurs in a given month.
• The opportunity share of new entrepreneurs nationally in 2019 was 86.9 percent.
• National startup early job creation in 2019 was 5.2 jobs, meaning that the average startup that hired would hire a little over 5 jobs for every 1,000 people.
• Startup early survival rate was 79.6 percent in 2019, meaning that almost eight in 10 startups survived the first year.