Small Business is Booming

We need to talk, especially if you have kids.

If you’ve felt like there are more and more businesses opening all the time, you’re not wrong. Starting with Covid, layoffs and the rise of remote work - more folks are starting small businesses than they have in decades. Americans filed 5.7 million applications last year to start new businesses, according to the Census Bureau, the most in the two decades since they started tracking these numbers. Applications through June keep increasing.

The wild thing is many of these are solo-entrepreneurs, more than we’ve seen in the past. The conjecture is the rise in AI and other tools is making it easier to start something up without hiring anyone - thus lowering the financial and administrative bar to entry. I, dear reader, agree with this assessment.

Having been working in small business for the best part of the last 20 years, I do wonder what it means for there to be more one woman bands out there. Small businesses have created 2 out of 3 of all new jobs in the last decade. So what will this mean for the job market? Or are we ALL going to just work for ourselves? Time will tell, I suppose.

Liz's Long Form Musings

If you aren’t sick of my tax musings yet, check out this New Dimes episode where I cover the gamut from tax protest to my love of municipal bonds.