EMBARGOED UNTIL: 2:30 P.M., JULY 10, 1996 (WEDNESDAY)

Public Information Office CB96-110
301-457-3030
301-457-4067 (TDD)

Eddie Salyers
Valerie Strang
301-763-5726

Number Of Hispanic Businesses Up 76 Percent In Five Years, Census Bureau Reports

EMBARGOED UNTIL: 2:30 P.M., JULY 10, 1996 (WEDNESDAY) - The number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the United States increased 76 percent from 489,973 to 862,605 between 1987 and 1992, according to a report released today by the Commerce Department's Census Bureau entitled "1992 Survey of Minority-Owned Business Enterprises, Hispanic" (MB92-2). This compares to a rate increase of 26 percent for all U.S. firms, from 13.7 million in 1987 to 17.3 million in 1992.

Receipts for Hispanic-owned firms increased by 134 percent during the five-year span, from $32.8 billion to $76.8 billion. In comparison, receipts for all U.S. firms grew by 67 percent, from $2 trillion to $3.3 trillion.

The report does not include C corporations, which are legally incorporated businesses with no limits on their number of shareholders.

The following statistics cover 771,708 of these Hispanic-owned firms for which detailed geographic and industry estimates are available.

Receipts per firm averaged $94,000 for Hispanic-owned firms, compared with $193,000 for all U.S. firms. Forty-seven percent or 359,588 of Hispanic businesses had receipts under $10,000, while approximately 9,200 had sales of $1 million or more.

The survey also shows that the 15 percent of Hispanic-owned firms with paid employees accounted for 79 percent of gross receipts of Hispanic-businesses. Of these firms, 676 had 100 or more employees and accounted for $10.7 billion in receipts.

Forty-five percent of Hispanic-owned firms were in the service industry and accounted for 23 percent of gross receipts. While Hispanic retailers accounted for 14 percent of total Hispanic-owned firms, they had 24 percent of gross receipts.

Approximately 89 percent of Hispanic-owned firms were sole proprietorships in 1992. Partnerships and subchapter S corporations comprised 4 and 7 percent, respectively. (A sole proprietorship is an unincorporated business owned by an individual; a partnership is an unincorporated business owned by two or more persons; and a subchapter S corporation is an unincorporated business with 35 or fewer shareholders.)

Three states--California, Texas, and Florida--accounted for 68 percent of the firms owned by Hispanics and 61 percent of the Hispanic population resides in those three states.

New Mexico had the highest percentage of firms owned by Hispanics at 20.1 percent; 12.6 percent of the receipts in the state were from
Hispanic-owned businesses. Texas ranked second with 12.4 percent of all firms and 5.1 percent of all receipts. Florida was third with 11.8 percent of all firms and 9.3 percent of all receipts.

The report contains information on the number of firms, receipts, number of paid employees, and annual payroll. These data are presented by geographic area (the nation, states, and selected metropolitan areas, counties, and cities), industry, size of firm, and legal form of organization with comparative 1992 data for all U.S. firms.

The data in this report were collected as part of the 1992 Economic Census from a large sample of all non-farm businesses filing tax forms as sole proprietorships, partnerships, or subchapter S corporations (corporations other than subchapter S were excluded), and with receipts of $500 or more in 1992.

The information was collected from a sample survey, and is therefore subject to sampling variability as well as reporting and coverage errors.
Comparisons to 1987 should be done with extreme caution because changes in tax laws caused inconsistencies between the 1987 and 1992 data. Changes in survey methodology also may contribute to the differences.

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Editor's note: media representatives may obtain copies of the report, 1992 Survey of Minority-Owned Business Enterprises, Hispanic (MB92-2), from the Census Bureau's Public Information Office on 301-457-3030; fax: 301-457-3670; or e-mail: pio@census.gov. Other orders should go to the bureau's Minority- and Women-Owned Business Information Staff on 301-763-5726. In addition,
selected tables will be available on the Internet at: https://www.census.gov/agfs/www/smobe.html