11.3% of Americans are entrepreneurs

The percentage of adult Americans involved in starting a business or running a new business fell slightly last year to 11.3%, according to an annual study by Babson College and sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. In 2003, 11.9% of adult Americans qualified as entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship hit its high point in the United States in 2000, when 16.6% of Americans were starting or running a new business. There were nearly 21 mln entrepreneurs in America in 2004, more than in any other nation. Brazil was second, with more than 15 mln entrepreneurs. Among the 34 countries studied, the percentage of adults starting or running a new business ranged from a low of 1.5% in Japan to a high of 40.3% in Peru.