Big Businesses in the U.S.
POP QUIZ:
According to the 2005 Census, how many U.S. companies employed 10,000 or more workers?
- 100
- 1,000
- 10,000
- 100,000
- 1,000,000
In 2005, over 116 million people were employed by almost six million companies. This does not include people who run their own companies but don’t employ anyone… so-called “one man operations”… they are counted separately. The number of companies that people usually refer to as “big businesses”, those with 10,000 or more employees, is a little less than a thousand (912). I suspect many people will be surprised to know there are so few.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
So, about 0.02% of the companies in the U.S. are the BIG employers (10,000+ workers) …. in fact, only 0.29% of all companies employ 500 or more workers. That means most of the companies our great country are relatively small businesses.
BIG businesses (10,000+ employees) provide jobs for about 27% of all workers and account for about 29% of all wages paid.
One problem faced by businesses is that, even though most are relatively small, they often come under the same rules and regulations. Just as our representatives often talk about “taxing the rich”… which sounds great to a LOT of people but, in reality, includes anyone with a taxable income of over $104,000 per year (hardly what you can call “rich”)… many laws and taxes advocated by politicians target “big businesses” but affect many smaller businesses.
“Big business” is not evil and neither are small businesses. They are all important components of our free enterprise system and have made huge contributions to our economic well-being, both in the past and now. While a few businesses have stepped over the line before, just as some individuals have done bad things, most have been very positive forces.
While some might complain about our standard of living today, it would not be anywhere nearly as good if our businesses were not able to operate efficiently… and, when government imposes too many constraints, when politicians attempt to control businesses in a heavy-handed way, it hurts our economy… and it hurts us as individuals.
Instead of trying to limit what U.S. businesses can do… instead of increasing taxes and reducing the incentive to take risks in the marketplace… our elected leaders should be trying to figure out ways to HELP BUSINESSES accomplish goals that would be mutually beneficial to us all.
