January 28, 2002 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Self-employed in 2000

Farmers and ranchers account for one in ten of the 12 million self-employed workers in the United States.

Occupations with the most self-employed, 2000
[Chart data—TXT]

In 2000, there were over one-and-a-quarter million self-employed farmers and ranchers, making this the occupation with the most self-employed. Next were supervisors of retail sales workers, followed by childcare workers and carpenters.

These data are from the Current Population Survey program. For more information, see "Occupational Employment" in the Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Winter 2001-2002.

 

Related TED article:

Happy 10th Birthday, TED!

The very first issue of The Editor's Desk (TED) was posted on September 28, 1998. TED was the first online-only publication of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For 10 years, BLS has been committed to posting a new TED article each business day, for a total of over 2,400 articles so far.

Find out more about the story of TED