From the Kauffman Foundation:
Entrepreneurship is alive and well in the wake of the Great Recession, although the rate of new business creation dipped during 2011 and startup founders remained more likely to fly solo than employ others. That's the big takeaway from the "Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity," a leading indicator of new business creation in the United States published annually and released today by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
The 2011 Index shows a 5.9 percent drop from 2010 with approximately 543,000 new businesses created each month during the year, or 0.32 percent of American adults per month in 2011, the Kauffman report shows. This remains among the highest levels of entrepreneurship over the past 16 years. The quarterly employer firm rate also remained essentially flat from 2010 to 2011 at 0.11 percent.
Among the 15 largest MSAs, Miami-Fort Lauderdale had the 4th highest rate of entrepreneurial activity with at rate of .47 percent or 470 per 1,000 adults, a rate far higher than the state of Florida as a whole with .38 percent.
Other findings:
Entrepreneurship rates for all races and ethnicities declined from 2010 to 2011. The Latino business-creation rate declined from 0.56 percent in 2010 to 0.52 percent in 2011, but remained at a high level relative to previous years and other demographic groups. The Asian entrepreneurial activity rate also decreased from 0.37 percent in 2010 to 0.32 percent in 2011.
Entrepreneurship growth was highest among 45- to 54-year-olds, rising from 0.35 percent in 2010 to 0.37 percent in 2011. The youngest group (aged 20 to 34) also showed a slight increase. In contrast, the 35- to 44-year-old and 55- to 64-year-old groups experienced declines in entrepreneurial activity rates from 2010 to 2011.
Geographically, entrepreneurial activity rates decreased in all U.S. regions except the Northeast, which experienced a slight increase. Arizona had the highest entrepreneurial activity rate, with 520 per 100,000 adults creating businesses each month during 2011. Rounding out the top five highest rates were Texas, California, Colorado and Alaska. Florida was in the top 10.