States With The Most And Least Small Businesses–How’d Mass. Do?

Here's something that may come as a surprise to Berkshire County residents. Then again, this may not come as a surprise at all for some. If someone asked you in what states would you find the most and least small family-owned businesses, where do you think the Bay State would rank?

The numbers are in and it's not good. The largest online small business lender, OnDeck, put together a list ranking all the states according to their number of family-owned businesses, and Massachusetts is almost dead last!

Utilizing data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Annual Business Survey, OnDeck ranked the states with the largest proportion of family-owned businesses. South Dakota, believe it or not, has the largest share of family-run businesses at just over 43%. Idaho came in a close second with 42.3%.

New York came in last place with the smallest share of family businesses at 20.4%. Following closely behind New York at 20.8 % is Massachusetts, then New Jersey at just under 22%, then Connecticut at just over 22%.

Think about those numbers. South Dakota has more than double the percentage of family businesses as the Bay State. Turns out that over 30% of U.S. businesses are, on average, family-owned.

Also, according to OnDeck, Lima, Ohio, is the #1 metropolitan area with the largest share of family businesses, with 56% of the businesses being family-owned. There are many other points of interest from the study. Check it out at OnDeck's website here.