Issue Brief: Lee County Small Business Analysis

May 19, 2023 / RERI Research Team

The analysis presented in this study comes from DatabaseUSA, a leading provider for establishment-level records. The dataset consists of 34,014 records for establishments in Lee County, Florida, and includes information on their reported industry, establishment size (number of employees), sales revenue, and latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates. We restrict our analysis to establishments with no more than 20 employees, consistent with the definition used by the Small Business Enterprise Program. Furthermore, we define a qualified establishment as one that meets the specified criteria in each table or figure.

We first examine the number of establishments (by industry) with no more than 20 employees and less than $2 million in total sales revenue. This serves as a baseline for the rest of the analysis. We then relax the sales revenue restriction to explore how establishments vary by industry. Finally, we investigate the percentage point difference by industry when the sales revenue threshold is increased from $2 million to $20 million. In the appendix we provide a spatial analysis detailing the location of the additional establishments added when this threshold is increased.

Main findings from the issue brief include:

75.1 percent of total establishments in Lee County, Florida had no more than 20 employees and less than $2 million in total sales revenue.
The industries with the largest shares included agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (98.1 percent), other services (97.8 percent) and administrative and waste services (93.4 percent).
Increasing this threshold from $2 million to $20 million sees large percentage point changes for the wholesale trade industry (68.5 percentage point increase), utilities industry (54.5 percentage point increase) and finance and insurance industry (54.1 percentage point increase). Overall, the total share of establishments that met the criteria would increase 14.7 percentage points to 89.8 percent.

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Issue Brief: Lee County Small Business Analysis

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