Asian American businesses have huge impact on US economy

Asian Americans businesses have helped shape Silicon Valley.

From the nail salons in Manhattan to the tech companies in Silicon Valley, from the grocery stores in Chinatown to the motion picture production studios in Los Angeles, from the ubiquitous Chinese American restaurants in almost every city to the Panda Express franchise, Asian American entrepreneurs have had a huge impact on the US economy.

In 2020, there were 612,194 Asian-owned businesses employing about 5.2 million in the United States, the highest among all minority groups, according to the US Census.

Even though AANHPI make up only 7% of the US population, their economic impact as consumers and entrepreneurs far surpasses their relatively small numbers, says the US Census.

As the US population has become more diverse, so has ownership of the nation’s businesses.

There were more Hispanic-owned businesses overall and more minority-owned businesses in various sectors in 2020 than a decade earlier, according to the Census Bureau’s 2021 Annual Business Survey (ABS).

The diversity of business owners mirrors the changing profile of the nation’s population. The 2020 Census found that the population of nearly all race and ethnicity groups in the United States had grown since 2010 with the exception of the White alone population, which declined during the decade.

A large share of Asian-owned firms — 23.8% — were in the Accommodation and Food Services sector in 2020. The number of Asian-owned businesses in this sector far outnumbered ownership by other minority groups.

Asian-owned businesses had the largest estimated receipts ($841.1 billion) among minority race groups.

Several entrepreneurs of Asian descent have helped shaped Silicon Valley, from David Sun and John Tu of Kingston Technology to Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang. Among Door Dash's founders are Andy and Stanley Tang.

Among the most successful Asian American women entrepreneurs is Vera Wang, the designer who gained fame for her bridal collection and show-stopping red-carpet dresses.

Despite the lack of Asian American representation in Hollywood films, one of the most successful movie producers is Dean Devlin, a Filipino American who helped put together the recent Godzilla remakes and counts Independence Day and the Stargate franchises among his most successful productions.

In total, in 2020 there were a total 5,775,258 US firms in all sectors. They employed about 129,363,644 workers and had total annual payroll of $7.3 trillion.

Approximately 20% or 1.2 million of these employer businesses were owned by minorities. They employed about 9.9 million employees and had annual payroll of $357.4 billion.

 Other highlights of the Census report:

• Veteran-owned businesses had an estimated $926.7 billion in receipts, 3.6 million employees, and $176.6 billion in annual payroll.

• Women-owned businesses had an estimated $1.9 trillion in receipts, 10.9 million employees, and $432.1 billion in annual payroll.

• The number of Hispanic-owned businesses grew about 8.2% from 346,836 in 2019 to 375,256 in 2020 and made up about 6.5% of all businesses with an estimated $472.3 billion in annual receipts, 2.9 million employees, and about $105.6 billion in annual payroll

• There were an estimated 140,918 Black- or African American-owned businesses with $141.1 billion in annual receipts, 1.3 million employees, and about $42.2 billion in annual payroll. About 27.5% or 38,819 of these businesses were in the Health Care and Social Assistance sector.

• There were an estimated 40,392 American Indian and Alaska Native-owned businesses with $39.7 billion in receipts, 243,523 employees, and about $9.6 billion in annual payrolll.

• There were an estimated 8,822 Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander-owned businesses with approximately $8.8 billion in receipts, 60,129 employees, and $2.3 billion in annual payroll.

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