18 Nov Wisconsin ranked no. 2 in Main Street Entrepreneurship activity
By Molly Dill, BizTimes Milwaukee
Wisconsin has improved its Main Street Entrepreneurship ranking to No. 2 among the 25 largest U.S. states, according to a new report released today by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
Wisconsin last year was ranked No. 3 on the Kauffman Index of Main Street Entrepreneurship, which surveys about 900,000 businesses across the country and orders states based on their rate of business owners, established small business density and survival rate of firms. This ranking focuses on companies that have been around five years or longer, and have fewer than 50 employees.
In the 2016 survey, only Minnesota beat Wisconsin in the Main Street Entrepreneurship rankings. The Badger State has a 6.46 percent rate of business owners, or the percentage of an adult population in a given area that owns a business as their main job; a 704.3 established small business density, which measures the number of established small businesses (employing at least one but fewer than 50 employees and more than five years old) per 1,000 firms; and a 50.8 percent survival rate of firms, or those that have operated past the five-year mark.
The report also breaks down Wisconsin business owner demographics. In 2015, 8.4 percent of men in Wisconsin owned a business as their main job, while 4.5 percent of women owned a business as their main job. Wisconsin was in the top five among the larger states for highest rates of female business ownership. Read more …