Survey of Business Owners - American Indian- and Alaska Native-Owned Firms: 2002
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
American Indians and Alaska Natives owned nearly 201,400 nonfarm U.S. businesses in 2002,
employed about 191,300 persons, and generated $26.9 billion in business revenues. These
American Indian- and Alaska Native-owned firms accounted for 0.9 percent of all nonfarm
businesses in the United States, almost 0.2 percent of their employment, and more than 0.1
percent of their receipts.
The 2002 Survey of Business Owners (SBO) defines American Indian- and Alaska Native-owned
businesses as firms in which American Indians and Alaska Natives own 51 percent or more of
the stock, equity, or interest of the business. The data in this report were collected as part of the
2002 Economic Census from a large sample of individual proprietorships, partnerships, and
corporations with receipts of $1,000 or more.
KIND-OF-BUSINESS CHARACTERISTICS
In 2002, nearly 3-in-10 American Indian- and Alaska Native-owned firms operated in
construction and other services, such as personal services, and repair and maintenance.
Construction and retail trade accounted for 41.0 percent or $11.0 billion of all American Indian-
and Alaska Native-owned business revenue.
GEOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS
Five states, California, Oklahoma, Texas, New York, and Florida, accounted for 45.9 percent or
92,507 American Indian- and Alaska Native-owned firms in 2002. These same five states
accounted for 40.5 percent or $10.9 billion of all American Indian- and Alaska Native-owned
business revenue Table
A (xls 15 KB) shows the number of American Indian- and Alaska Native-owned
firms in these states compared to all businesses in the state.
Tables B, (xls 15 KB)
C, (xls 15 KB) and
D, (xls 15 KB) respectively,
show the three combined statistical areas, one county, and three cities with the
largest number of American Indian- and Alaska Native-owned firms and compare the
firms and receipts for the county and cities with the numbers in their corresponding
states.
SIZE OF FIRM
Twelve percent of all American Indian- and Alaska Native-owned firms had paid employees and
accounted for 81.8 percent of gross receipts. The average receipts for these employer firms was
$897,489.
There were 3,631 American Indian- and Alaska Native-owned firms with receipts of $1 million
or more. These firms accounted for 1.8 percent of the total number of American Indian- and
Alaska Native-owned firms and more than 64.2 percent of their total receipts.
There were 178 American Indian- and Alaska Native-owned firms with 100 employees or more,
generating almost $5.3 billion in gross receipts (almost 24.0 percent of the total revenue
for American Indian- and Alaska Native-owned employer firms).
DATA COMPARABILITY TO PRIOR SURVEYS
Firms that reported ownership by an American Indian tribal entity in 2002 are considered to be
government-owned entities, and are therefore excluded from the estimates of American Indian-
and Alaska Native-owned firms. Since this distinction was not made in the 1997 survey, direct
data comparisons cannot be made between the 2002 SBO and its previous survey.
The kind-of-business data for 2002 for American Indian- and Alaska Native-owned firms are not
comparable to 1997 due to the transition from the 1987 Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)
system to the 2002 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Additional
changes affecting data comparability are discussed in detail in Methodology, in the section titled
"Comparability of the 2002 and 1997 SBO Data."
[Excel] or the letters [xls] indicate a document is in the Microsoft® Excel® Spreadsheet Format
(XLS). To view the file, you will need the
Microsoft®
Excel® Viewer
available for free from Microsoft®.
This symbol
indicates a link to a non-government web site. Our linking to these sites does not
constitute an endorsement of any products, services or the information found on them.
Once you link to another site you are subject to the policies of the new site.