Small Business and Supplemental Income

In times of economic duress more and more people from the employed to the unemployed are looking in the direction of part-time and full-time self employment ventures. Many of my friends and former co-workers are delving into alternative methods of income. From using the internet to landscaping and construction, in times of economic crunches people seek other means to supplement their lifestyles.

According to The Small Business Economy: A Report to the President 2008; small businesses continue to produces 50% of the private, nonfarm gross domestic product (GDP). In 2008 the GDP fell 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter, according to The Small Business Economy: A Report to the President 2009, a 1.1 percent decline for the year. In 2008 more than half of the job loss was from small businesses. These are private companies with fewer than 500 employees. However, many of these businesses have fewer than 20 employees.

“Even as small businesses face challenges in the current economy, entrepreneurship will be vital in the nation’s recovery. Small businesses play an important role in generating new jobs and driving innovations that will keep the U.S. economy competitive and vibrant.” – The Small Business Economy: A Report to the President 2009

There are about 120 million nonfarm private sector workers in the United States. There are over 29.6 million small businesses in America, and they employ over half of the U.S. workforce. There are fewer than 18,000 major corporations with 500+ employees that consume the remaining portion of the U.S. workforce. Small businesses with fewer than 20 employees employed over 21.6 million people in 2008. And in 2006 there were over 21 million Americans running a small business without a single employee. (Information collected from the Small Business Administration)

Major corporations are not helping the employment problem; they are creating it by consuming our tax dollars in bailout money and exporting our jobs overseas. Our economy is built on private enterprises, not corporate conglomerates. It’s the over 630,000 people that start new small businesses every year that provide the economic strength of this country. I find it very interesting that when multi-national corporations fail to produce they don’t fear a thing. Because we, the small businesses of America, will cut jobs, pay higher taxes, lose our businesses and homes to insure their survival. It is the small businesses that have generated the 64 percent of new jobs in the last 15 years, and it is the small businesses that have supported the financial demands of our nation’s debt. Large corporations pull the political strings, but it is small businesses that make up the corner stone of this nation economy.

How does all this information affect you?

I have owned a small company for over 8 years. By no means is it my primary income. But I have hopes and plans to turn my business in a small self sustaining enterprise. I say the words “self sustaining” because this is an important part of the small business goal. It’s a means to have a well oiled machine made of people that produces profits for you and your employees whether you’re there or not. What you might call a residual income machine.

Going into business is a tremendous challenge, and I don’t recommend to anyone to jump in with both feet and eyes closed. You’ll find that most successful businesses today were part-time ventures when they started. And I feel it is vital for the success of your future business that you are fully aware of the problems that you will encounter.

I highly recommend that you do your research. Contact your local small business association. Look into small business grant programs both local and federal before getting a loan. Talk to other business owners about how they did it. Check out your competition and never do anything without research, research and more research.

Tags: Employers, Entrepreneurship, Government, Self-Employment, Small Business, Workforce

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 1:50 am and is filed under Employment, Urban Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.