Why We're BIG on Small Business

We join colleagues in business, education, government and non-profits to be advocates for small business. Our goals are that:

• the voice of small business be heard in proportion to our numbers.
  
• our influence be equal to our impact on the economy.
  
• policies and programs foster success of these companies.
  

FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA

Small companies are change agents. Their innovation and experimentation often are catalysts for new technologies that improve productivity and quality of life.

Entrepreneurs nurture new ideas that might otherwise be dormant. They are essential to the ever-evolving American economy. Small business is America’s business.

Small companies, as vendors and suppliers, help big businesses increase shareholder value by providing quality goods and services at competitive prices.

Small companies often hold the keys that open doors to economic self-sufficiency, especially for many who believe that the American dream is theirs to live.

As employers, they offer market power to the spectrum of the workforce. Our diverse nation finds market power and, often, undiscovered opportunities in small business.

IN OUR NATION

Small businesses (fewer than 500 employees) account for 50% of the gross domestic product.

Those companies employ 58% of the nation’s workforce.

They create 75% of the net new jobs.

The IRS says that 44% of money collected annually comes from small businesses.

Less than 4/100 of 1% of the FY03 federal budget appropriation request went to the Small Business Administration.

IN OUR STATE

Small Businesses make up 97.2 percent of all Arizona employers.

Small businesses create more than 50 percent of the American non-farm private gross domestic product (GDP).

Small patenting firms produce 13 to 14 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms.

The 449,600 small businesses in Arizona are located in every community and neighborhood. Small business employ 48.0 percent of Arizona's non-farm private sector workers.

Home-bases businesses account for 53 percent of all small businesses.

Small businesses are 97 percent of America's exporters and produce 26 percent of all export value

Arizona saw an estimated 21,339 new small firms with employees start-up in the last year measured.

There are approximately 58,600 minority-owned businesses and 109,749 women-owned businesses in Arizona, and almost all of them are small businesses.

The latest figures show that small business creates 65 percent or more of America's net new jobs.

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