Business Capital

The business capital measures in the Report Card gauge the rate at which a state's residents own their own businesses, the extent to which business ownership has been achieved across various population groups, and the level of business wealth accumulated by a state's nontraditional entrepreneurs (especially women and minorities). Measures of business capital accumulation are included in the Report Card because, according to data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, equity in unincorporated businesses made up the second largest share (17.7%) of total household wealth in 1998.7 Moreover, business formation has traditionally been a route into the middle class for large numbers of U.S. households, including immigrants. In the United States, business ownership also confers a certain amount of respect upon the business owner. Direct measures of business capital accumulation are difficult to find and are nonexistent at the state level. Therefore, the measures used in the Report Card are proxies for business capital formation and its distribution among nontraditional business owners, such as women and minorities:

Small Business Ownership Rate
Private Loans to Small Businesses
Minority Entrepreneurship
Womens Business Ownership Rate
Business Ownership Value by Race
Business Ownership Value by Gender