According to the U.S. Census, in 2019, the number of U.S. nonemployer businesses increased to 27,104,006, up 2.3% from 2018. 2019 is the most recent nonemployer data available.
Nonemployers are businesses with an owner but don't have paid traditional full or part-time employees (W2 employees).
The data comes from tax records, and you can think of nonemployers as solopreneur businesses (some exceptions apply). The data includes anyone reporting $1,000 or more in self-employment income, so part-time solopreneurs are included in these numbers.
From 2010 to 2019, the number of nonemployer businesses has grown at an average annual rate of 2.5%.
That may not sound like much growth, but it's about three times the growth rate for overall employment.
One of the more interesting nonemployer data sub-trends is that the number high earning nonemployers - those who report gross receipts of $100,000 or more per year - is one of the fastest-growing segments.
Higher earners grew at an average annual rate of 3.7% between 2010 and 2019 and reached 3.23 million in 2019.
The Nonemployer Dataset gets less attention than other government data on self-employment.
This is because the dataset is messy, hard to work with, and includes a hodgepodge of business entities - passive businesses, firms no longer in business, LLCs owned by major corporations - that aren't active solopreneur businesses.
It also is hardly up to date. The latest data is from 2019 and 2020 data won't be out for at least another year or so.
But despite these issues, we find the nonemployer data to be a useful indicator of the historical growth of solopreneurs in the U.S.
