Earn It Goal 7

People who create full- or part-time self-employment ventures access technical and financial assistance to improve their chances of business success.

Common Sense

• Rural areas are less likely to have a full range of business start-up and assistance services.
• Business assistance services reduce the high failure rate of new businesses.
• Rural people often have less access to the full range of capital needed for business start-up and expansion.
• In rural places, most new jobs are created by new or small businesses.
• Rural areas often have limited access to the broadband telecommunication needed to make business ventures competitive.

Fast Facts

• Microenterprise provides one out of five jobs in rural counties. (Journal of Extension, The Impact of Microenterprise Development Training on Low-Income Clients, 2006)
• The number of non-farm rural residents who are self-employed has doubled in the last 3 decades – and has increased by 240% since 1969. (Rural Sociological Society, Rural Realities: Self-Employment in Rural America, 2008)
• Eight million Americans need two or more jobs to make ends meet. REF

Check out related Action Ideas and Alerts below! Or view other Earn It goals here.