Regional Businesses Located in Households

Based on Census data from the 2014 ACS, here's a look at businesses that are operated out of residential homes in the two county region. Click on the graphic to enlarge it.

New Census Web Tool Helps Business Owners Make Data Driven Decisions

 The U.S. Census Bureau released Census Business Builder: Small Business Edition, a new Web tool that allows business owners and entrepreneurs to easily navigate and use key demographic and economic data to help guide their research into opening a new business or adding to an existing one.

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The Census Business Builder was developed with user-centered design at its core and incorporated feedback from customers and stakeholders, including small business owners, trade associations and other government agencies.

The tool combines data from the American Community Survey, the economic census, County Business Patterns and other economic surveys to provide a complete business profile of an area. Business statistics include the number of establishments, employment, payroll and sales. American Community Survey statistics include population characteristics, economic characteristics and housing characteristics.

If you want to  go directly to the web tool, click here to launch the small business edition tool. Below is a sample screen shot for mapping the total consumer expenditures when dining out that might help a small business owner decide where they wanted to locate a new restaurant. Click the map to enlarge it.

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Small Business Saturday: November 29th

This Saturday, November 29th, will be the fifth anniversary of the kickoff of Small Business Saturday (SBS). SBS is a day to celebrate and support small businesses and all they do for our local communities. 

According to the Small Business Patterns 2012, about 2,100 Herkimer County residents are employed in retail settings, with a combined payroll of roughly $46 million dollars. Another 1,500 work in food services and accommodations, accounting for another $19.6 million in payroll. Around 90% of the retail, the food service and the accommodations establishments in Herkimer County have less than 20 employees! 

How Important Are Small Businesses?

We often hear that small businesses are the engines of job creation in the United States. According to an article on Forbes.com their value and the role they play in our economy is sometimes underestimated because, they are in fact, small. But the truth is there’s nothing small about the impact they have on our economy. They cite a recent study by Entrepreneur Magazine that there are between 25 million and 27 million small businesses in the U.S. that account for 60 to 80 percent of all U.S. jobs. And, a recent study by Paychex, says that small businesses produce 13 times more patents that larger firms.

Those numbers may be a little high, at least compared to numbers derived from the Census Bureau.  The website Feefighters.com offers the following infographic that lays out the importance of small businesses (which typically means businesses with 500 or fewer employees) based on Census Bureau statistics.

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  Locally, small businesses make up nearly ALL of the establishments in our area based on the definition above of having 500 or fewer employees. Here's a breakdown for Herkimer and Oneida Counties of the number and proportion of business establishments based on their size (as measured by the number of paid employees that they have). These numbers come from the County Business Patterns for the latest year (2011).