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State Report on Early-Stage Entrepreneurship in the United States (2021)

This report presents state trends in early-stage entrepreneurship in all 50 states and the District of Columbia from 1996-2021.

Written by Robert Fairlie

The Kauffman Indicators of Early-Stage Entrepreneurship is a set of measures that represents new business creation in the United States, integrating several high-quality, timely sources of information on early-stage entrepreneurship.

This report presents four indicators tracking early-stage entrepreneurship for the years 1996-2021: rate of new entrepreneurs reflects the number of new entrepreneurs in a given month, opportunity share of new entrepreneurs is the percentage of new entrepreneurs who created their businesses out of opportunity instead of necessity, startup early job creation is the total number of jobs created by startups per capita, and startup early survival rate is the one-year average survival rate for new firms. State level trends are reported for all four indicators.

Report Highlights

  • The rate of new entrepreneurs in 2021 ranged from a low of 0.17 percent in West Virginia to a high of 0.61 percent in Florida. The median for states in 2021 was 0.31 percent, reflecting 310 out of every 100,000 adults.
  • The opportunity share of new entrepreneurs ranged from a low of 65.1 percent in Michigan to a high of 93.1 percent in Arkansas, with a median of 79.1 percent.
  • Startup early job creation in Vermont was 2.5 jobs per 1,000 people, compared with 6.5 jobs per 1,000 people in Florida, and a median of 4.1.
  • Startup early survival rate ranged from 73.4 percent in Hawaii to 89.2 percent in Washington, with a median of 81.0 percent.
  • The overall KESE Index – an equally-weighted composite of the four indicators – ranged from -6.0 in Rhode Island to 8.8 in Florida, with a median of 0.6.
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