Unexpectedly Intriguing!
04 October 2011

How many people are employed by small business in the United States? Or for that matter, how many people are employed at big businesses in the U.S.?

These are seemingly simple questions, but the answers to them hinge on just what the criteria is for deciding what makes a small business and what makes a big business.

Is it annual revenue? Profits? The size of the real estate the business occupies? The number of employees? Just what is it that makes a small business small and a big business big?

Size of Businesses by Number of Employees
Input Data Values
Lower End of Size Range
Upper End of Size Range


How Many Americans Worked at Businesses Of the Indicated Size in 2008?
Estimated Results Values
Average Number of Americans Employed at Businesses of Indicated Size

The U.S. Small Business Administration doesn't make it any easier, as they only narrow down the range of possibilities to the business' average annual receipts (revenue) or its average annual employment. And then, being the government, if you have any questions, they will direct you to a "Size Specialist" at your nearest SBA Government Contracting Area Office or the Office of Size Standards.

The SBA considers 500 employees to be the dividing line between small business and big business, but really, it varies by industry - it can be 500, 750, or even 1000 depending upon what business we're talking about.

We here at Political Calculations believe in keeping it simple. We extracted the SBA's data for the number of employees at U.S. businesses, which range in size from 0 to those businesses that employ 5,000 or more, and built a tool to estimate the total number of Americans who work at the businesses who employ the number range you indicate.

Better yet, with our tool, you can estimate how many Americans work at businesses at size ranges other than the official cookie-cutter lists the SBA publishes! Our results will typically be within 2% of those figures and will often be within a half percent of the actual data.

But really, that still doesn't answer the questions of how many people work for small businesses, and how many people work for big businesses. It's still ultimately up to you to decide where small business ends and big business begins!

Labels: ,

About Political Calculations

Welcome to the blogosphere's toolchest! Here, unlike other blogs dedicated to analyzing current events, we create easy-to-use, simple tools to do the math related to them so you can get in on the action too! If you would like to learn more about these tools, or if you would like to contribute ideas to develop for this blog, please e-mail us at:

ironman at politicalcalculations

Thanks in advance!

Recent Posts

Indices, Futures, and Bonds

Closing values for previous trading day.

Most Popular Posts
Quick Index

Site Data

This site is primarily powered by:

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

CSS Validation

Valid CSS!

RSS Site Feed

AddThis Feed Button

JavaScript

The tools on this site are built using JavaScript. If you would like to learn more, one of the best free resources on the web is available at W3Schools.com.

Other Cool Resources

Blog Roll

Market Links

Useful Election Data
Charities We Support
Shopping Guides
Recommended Reading
Recently Shopped

Seeking Alpha Certified

Archives