As goes the American entrepreneur, so goes America

American entrepreneurs are beginning to flourish again. According to Dictionary.com, an entrepreneur is a "person who starts, organizes and operates a business, taking on financial risks in the hope of making a profit." What's good for the American entrepreneur is good for America. The Engine of American Prosperity Entrepreneurs and small businesses are the engine of our economic vitality — they make up 99.9% of all U.S. businesses. They also employ about 45.9% of private-sector workers — roughly 62.3 million people — and have accounted for about 61% of net new jobs since 1995. Not only have such small-business inventions produced millions of good-paying jobs, they've dramatically improved our lives. In his seminal 1958 work, "The Sources of Invention," the late British economist John Jewkes found that more than half of the major job-creating inventions of the twentieth century were the work of entrepreneurs and small startups. Entrepreneurs gave us the sewing machine, electric power, the automobile, the zipper, the aircraft industry, the jet engine, radio and television, power steering, the helicopter and rocketry. They also invented acrylics, cellophane, neoprene, air conditioning, the electron microscope, instant cameras, magnetic recording, fluorescent lighting, radar, the safety razor and stainless steel. What Held Entrepreneurs Back Not so long ago, our small businesses were languishing. In the wake of the Great Recession of 2008, America experienced a horrible reversal of its entrepreneurial fortunes: For the first time in decades, more businesses failed than started up. That regrettable trend didn't begin reversing until 2012, and even then new startups remained modest through 2016. During Trump's first term, the business climate improved sharply. Business applications rose from about 3.0 million in 2016 to 3.5 million by 2018-19, while the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index soared to multidecade highs. As tax cuts and deregulation took hold, the Optimism Index averaged a record 104.8 in 2017 and peaked at an all-time high of 108.8 in August 2018. Just two years later, the COVID-19 lockdowns delivered another severe shock. In the spring of 2020, roughly 40% to 45% of small businesses temporarily closed at the peak of the restrictions. Permanent closures rose sharply, especially among the smallest firms. Interestingly, as millions of Americans lost their jobs and were stuck at home, many used the sudden free time, stimulus money and shifting economy to launch something of their own. Applications to start new businesses surged in 2020 and stayed elevated for years. However, entrepreneurs faced a different set of headwinds. Surging inflation, high interest rates, increased regulation and labor shortages kept the NFIB Optimism Index in the high 80s to low 90s — well below the record highs a few years earlier. Clearing the Path The Trump administration is taking several key steps to encourage entrepreneurship and small-business growth. These include making the 20% qualified business income deduction, Section 199A, permanent, restoring and expanding full expensing and bonus depreciation for equipment, factories and research and development, and aggressively cutting regulations through initiatives such as the SBA Deregulation Strike Force, which aims to reduce regulatory costs by hundreds of billions of dollars. The administration has also increased SBA lending, eased certain reporting requirements — including Beneficial Ownership Information rules for many small businesses — and provided greater tax certainty through its "One Big Beautiful Bill," signed into law in 2025. Small-business groups have welcomed the administration's tax cuts, deregulation and other pro-business policies. And there are encouraging signs that America's entrepreneurial engine is revving again. The Entrepreneurial Comeback The National Federation of Independent Business' Small Business Optimism Index jumped 2.1 points in June to 97.4, nearly reaching its 52-year historical average of 98.0 — though still short of the 2018 average. Still, expectations for better business conditions and real sales have improved substantially, while plans for capital spending rose to their highest level of the year. The Kauffman Foundation reports that the rate of new entrepreneurs and job creation increased in 2025 and remained above pre-pandemic levels. Let's all cross our fingers that the entrepreneurial spirit continues to grow — that more Americans are emboldened to take on big risks to create a new business, product or technological innovation. Because as goes the American entrepreneur, so goes America. – Copyright 2026 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. See Tom Purcell's syndicated column, humor books and funny videos featuring his dog, Thurber, at TomPurcell.com. Email him at Tom@TomPurcell.com.