Virginia ranks high in survey of minority-owned businesses

Virginia ranks among the top 10 states in the nation in terms of the percentage of total employers that are minority-owned.

In 2015, 21.4 percent of businesses with employees in the Old Dominion were owned by minorities, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2015 Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs.

The recently released survey found that the total number of minority-owned employers nationwide rose 4.9 percent in 2015 to 996,248 from 949,318 in 2014.

Payroll and employment for minority-owned employer firms in the nation also increased from 2014 to 2015 by approximately 7 percent ($237.5 billion to $254 billion) and 6.2 percent (7.6 million to 8 million people employed), respectively.

Virginia ranked 10th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in percentage of total employers that are minority owned.

Hawaii and California led all states, at 55.9 percent and 32.6 percent, respectively.

They were followed by Texas (27 percent), the District of Columbia (26.3 percent), Florida (24.3 percent), New Mexico (23.4 percent), New Jersey (23.1 percent), Maryland (22.8 percent) and New York (22.5 percent).

California led all states in the number of minority-owned firms with approximately 228,148 (22.9 percent of the U.S. total of minority-owned firms) and the New York metropolitan area led the 50 most populous metropolitan statistical areas in the number of minority-owned firms (approximately 127,736 or 12.8 percent).

More than one-quarter (14) of the 50 most populous metropolitan statistical areas had approximately 15,000 or more minority-owned employer businesses. About one-third of employer firms (34.6 percent) in the accommodation and food services sector were minority-owned.

Ownership of firms by women increased by 3 percent from 2014 (to approximately 1.1 million in 2015). Payroll for women-owned firms also increased from $277.9 billion in 2014 to $293.1 billion in 2015 — a change of 5.5 percent.

Again, California led all states in the number of women-owned firms with approximately 140,817 (12.9 percent of all women-owned firms in the United States) and the New York area led the 50 most populous metropolitan statistical areas in the number of women-owned firms (approximately 94,577, or 8.7 percent of all women-owned firms in the United States).

Additionally, about one-quarter (268,629, or 24.7 percent) of all women-owned employer firms were minority-owned. More than half (approximately 146,101 or 54.4 percent) of these minority women-owned firms were Asian-owned.
Meanwhile, veteran-owned employer firms decreased by 1.7 percent in 2015 (398,453) down from 405,235 in 2014.