SBA loves Missouri's small businesses

The administration's Office of Advocacy today sent out a list of the top 10 reasons to love the state's small businesses, defined as those having fewer than 500 employees:

10. Small businesses employ 97.7 percent of all Missouri workers.

9. Small businesses create more than 50 percent of the American nonfarm private gross domestic product.

8. Small patenting firms produce 13 to 14 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms.

7. The 461,259 small businesses in Missouri are located in every community and neighborhood.

6. Small businesses employ 49.8 percent of Missouri's nonfarm private sector workers.

5. Home-based businesses account for 53 percent of all small businesses.

4. Small businesses are 97 percent of America's exporters and produce 26 percent of all export value.

3. Missouri saw an estimated 16,155 new small firms with employees startup in the last year measured.

2. There are approximately 30,200 minority-owned businesses and 120,457 women-owned businesses in Missouri, and almost all of them are small businesses.

1. The latest figures show that small business creates 65 percent or more of America's net new jobs.