Since 1963, the President of the United States has issued a proclamation announcing National Small Business Week, which recognizes the contributions of America’s entrepreneurs and small business owners. We are in the midst of Small Business Week 2017 now and it’s important to know if California cities are welcoming to small business.
Important because according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, “More than half of Americans either own or work for a small business, and they create about two out of every three new jobs in the U.S. each year.”
The State of California takes recognizing small business a step further by designating the entire month of May Small Business Month. The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) kicked off the state effort with a press conference yesterday featuring legislators, educators and small business owners. The conference announced free events during the month and a new micro-lending program called Jump Start.
So how does California stack up with other states in encouraging small business?
The personal finance website Wallet Hub put together a study on small business opportunity in cities across the country. The study measured 18 key metrics in three areas important to small business creation: Business Environment, Access to Resources, and Business Costs.
Under each category were subcategories. For instance, under Business Environment scores were computed for such things as average growth in the number of small businesses, start-ups per capita, and five-year business survival rates. Resources included not only financial capital but also human capital and college educated population. Business costs dealt with taxes, labor costs and cost of living in the various cities. The methodology and scored categories are here.
In the roll of the countries 150 largest cities, the first California city on the list was Los Angles, which ranked 33rd. Los Angeles was scored the 9th best Business Environment, 30th in Access to Resources, but way down to 131 out of 150 in Business Costs.
In fact, according to the Wallet Hub study, California starred in the category of Business Environment. California cities held five of the top ten spots in that category: Huntington Beach was number 1, Oceanside was 3, followed by San Francisco 8, Los Angeles 9 and Santa Clarita 10. State cities also occupied five of the next ten spots as well.
However, California fell down in the Business Cost category taking 6 of the 8 lowest rankings: San Jose 143, Huntington Beach 144, Santa Clarita 145, Irvine, 148, Fremont 149, and San Francisco 150. California cities had four of the five lowest rankings under High Cost of Labor.
Wallet Hub also tabulated business opportunity for entrepreneurs in smaller cities. You had to scroll far down the list to find California’s top entry, San Leandro at number 412. Again Business Cost was the killer for California small cities. San Leandro ranked 999 out of 1261 cities measured, with California cities holding 20 of the last 22 spots on the list.
Taking the study at face value, the message for California is clear. Reduce the extraordinary cost of doing business in the Golden State and small business in California would boom.