Breaking Through: Harnessing the Economic Potential of Women Entrepreneurs

With support from Capital One’s Future Edge initiative, the Center for an Urban Future recently released “Breaking Through: Harnessing the Economic Potential of Women Entrepreneurs” – a new report exploring the impact women-led businesses have had on local economies across the country. The report features the contributions Grameen America has made in New York City towards empowering women entrepreneurs.

Key findings include:

• In terms of the overall numbers of women-owned businesses, New York City tops the list, with 413,899—more than double that of the second-ranked city, Los Angeles (192,358). Chicago ranks third with 123,632 women-owned firms, followed by Houston with 102,813 and Dallas with 52,798.
• Over the last decade, from 2002-2012, the number of women-owned businesses in the United States increased by 52 percent. This amounts to 928 new businesses every day, adding over 1,290,245 jobs and $90,191,545 billion in payroll to the nation’s economy.
• If only one quarter of the existing 8,842,742 women-owned businesses in the United States with no employees added a single employee in the next three years, it would result in more than 2.2 million new jobs.
• According to the 2012 U.S. Census, New York City ranks 19th among the nation’s 25 largest cities in the growth of women-owned firms and 18th in average sales.
• Women-owned businesses now make up more than 40 percent of private companies in New York City, up from 33 percent 5 years ago and 32 percent a decade ago.
• Over the last 5 years, the number of women-owned businesses in NYC increased by 36 percent, while the number of male-owned businesses increased by just 8 percent during the same period.