by Erik White
August 2016
Recently released data from the Census Bureau and its Survey of Business Owners highlight the number of businesses in Minnesota that are owned or equally owned by minorities. Minnesota is home to 49,688 firms that are minority owned with sales of nearly 8.5 billion dollars coming from these businesses.
The majority of these businesses are those without paid employees, 43,435, but there are 6,253 firms with paid employees that are minority owned. They provide more than 7 billion dollars in sales and more than 67,000 jobs. Altogether in Minnesota, the Census Bureau counts 489,494 firms, with and without employees, and minority owned businesses comprise 10.4 percent of the total number of firms in the state.
The 7-county metro area has 82.7 percent of minority owned business in the state, and Hennepin County has 20,129 minority owned firms in the county, the most in the state. The highest percentage of minority owned firms belongs to Mahnomen County, part of the White Earth Indian Reservation, with 40.1 percent of all firms.
To find out more about the number of minority owned firms in your county, hover over the selected county on the map below.
