Report: Women-owned businesses jumped 3,000% since 1972

There’s some good news trickling in about the state of women in the business world, and it’s not just about blazers made out of yoga pant fabric.

A new report looks at the overarching trends in women-owned businesses, and things have definitely improved since 1972, when the U.S. Census Bureau first started providing data on minority- and women-owned businesses. In AMEX’s 2018 State of Women-Owned Businesses report, the analysts found that the number of women-owned businesses—defined as businesses that are at least 51% owned, operated, and controlled by one or more females—increased 31 times since 1972, going from 402,000 to 12.3 million in 2018.

Here are some of the key findings:

Over the last 11 years, all businesses increased by 12%, while the number of women-owned businesses surged 58%.
Four out of every 10 businesses (40%) in the United States are now women-owned.
It’s not just businesses owned by white women that are growing: The number of firms owned by minority women has grown 163% since 2007.
As of 2018, women of color now own 47% of all women-owned businesses, generating an estimated $386.6 billion in revenues.
All told, women-owned firms now employ some 9.2 million people, a 40-fold growth spurt from the 70s.
Revenues rose from $8.1 billion to $1.8 trillion.

In other words, women in blazers or yoga pants or blazers made from yoga pants are having a tremendous impact on the U.S. economy.