One of the biggest upside surprises of the pandemic years was an explosion in the number of new businesses being created by Americans. That “startup surge,” as the Economic Innovation Group (EIG) labels it, has persisted past the formal end of the pandemic. As shown in the chart above—from the Census Bureau’s Business Formation Statistics (BFS)—the initial spikes upward and downward in the second half of 2020 have since moderated. Yet business creation in the aggregate remains well above pre-Covid levels, a “new, significantly higher baseline,” according to EIG.
Before proceeding, some definitions:
“Business formation” or “business creation” is defined by the Census Bureau