Lone entrepreneurs generated significant revenue in 2006

POSTED: 08:06 MST Friday, August 1, 2008

by IBR staff report

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Tags - Entrepreneurship , Idaho Department of Commerce and Labor, Idaho Department of Labor

Revenue generated by nonemployee businesses in Idaho jumped over 36 percent during the economic expansion following the 2001 national recession.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the state’s nonemployee businesses generated more than $4.6 billion in revenue in 2006, up from $3.4 billion in 2002. It was the fifth fastest rate of growth among the states. Nationally, revenues from nonemployee businesses were up 26 percent.

The significant increase in revenue from these businesses without employees – entrepreneurs often operating from their homes, small store fronts or their pickup trucks – came from a combination of rising average receipts and a significant increase in the number, according to a release.

The state Department of Labor reported, more than 109,000 nonemployee businesses were operating in Idaho in 2006, up over 22 percent or almost 20,000 from 2002. That was the ninth strongest growth rate in the nation. On average those businesses generated just under $42,200 each, an increase of 11 percent from the 2002 average to rank 15^th among the states.

Nationally, nonemployee business grew 17 percent to 20.8 million, averaging $46,800 in revenue, or only 7 percent more than in 2002.The Census Bureau bases the estimates on statistics taken from tax return information filed with the Internal Revenue Service.The housing boom was the catalyst for Idaho’s growth.

1 Comments

$46,800.. gross? May not seem large, but lots of microbusinesses and essentially part-timers. Might be very interesting to look at the distribution of this -- what about those making a whole lot more than $100K p.a.? One can make a lot of $$ without necessarily creating jobs.
Is much of this is necessity-driven entrepreneurship? In this tight labor market, one can certainly hope that we are seeing more opportunity-driven entrepreneurship.
If much of this was driven by the housing boom, can we sustain these numbers?
I for one am looking forward to digging into the Census data & see what it's saying about size and likely motivation.
Comment By Norris Krueger
Friday, August 1, 2008 @ 7:27 PM

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