Dr. Nyesha C. Black, Director of Socioeconomic Analysis & Demographics at Culverhouse’s Center for Business and Economic Research, or CBER, recently gave an update on the state of microbusinesses in Alabama at the 2020 Booker T. Washington Economic Summit on September 17, 2020.
A microbusiness is any business that has fewer than five employees. With over 49,000 microbusinesses in Alabama, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns, they make up a significant part of the state’s economic backbone and workforce. Micro-establishments in the state have 90,975 paid employees, with an annual payroll of nearly $4 billion. The top sector for microbusinesses in the state is retail trade (15.0%), though there are microbusinesses in a wide variety of sectors like construction, healthcare and social assistance, and more. Though their impact on the state is significant, Dr. Black found that the proportion of microbusinesses in Alabama (49.3%) is less than the national average (54.5%).
Dr. Black also presented data from the Small Business Administration (SBA) Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) loan database broken down by size of loan and race. In all, more than 70,000 PPP loans were allocated to Alabama’s small businesses. In addition, non-mainstream banks allocated the most loans to microbusinesses. The top five banks that allocated loans to microbusinesses were Kabbage, Inc., River Bank and Trust, Trustmark National Bank, and BancorpSouth Bank.
For more info about Alabama economic indicators, visit CBER’s website here.