Study Says Entrepreneurship Is Alive and Well

The 2016 Kauffman Index of Main Street Entrepreneurship, released today by Kansas City’s Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, indicates an increase of small business activity across the country.

A particularly good sign, the report says, is a consistent rise in the survival rate of small businesses, which measures businesses that remain in operation through their first five years. After hitting a low of 42.9 percent in 2011, the rate has risen each year since to a three-decade high of 48.7 percent for 2016.

Those gains are reflected regionally, as well. In the state of Missouri, the survival rate for small business was 44.26 percent, up from 42.9 in 2015. For Kansas, the rate was 50.53 percent, up from 48.26 percent.