More minority-owned businesses

Government figures released this summer show that the growth in the number of businesses owned by minorities in Wisconsin increased at high rates in recent years. The number of black-owned businesses grew by 38% from 1997 to 2002, from 4,848 to 6,687. Asian-owned firms increased 32% from 3,752 to

For comparison, there were 393,303 businesses in Wisconsin in 2002, so minorities owned 3.9%. Of those, 112,630 or 29% had paid employees totaling 2.3 million. For the black-owned firms, 12.9% had paid employees for a total of 9,402 employed. For Asianowned, 36.5% had paid employees totaling 12,032, and for Hispanic-owned, 23.2% had paid employees totaling 9,011.

Females owned 26.4% of all businesses in the state, but just 16.2% of those with paid employees.