Incubators: Startups on uptick

The number of U.S. business startups launched in 2009, the third year of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, reached record highs, even exceeding the number of startups during the peak 1999-2000 technology boom. According to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, the number of new businesses created during the 2007-2009 recession years increased steadily year to year. In 2009, the 340 out of 100,000 adults who started businesses each month represent a 4 percent increase over 2008, or 27,000 more starts per month than in 2008 and 60,000 more starts per month than in 2007. Mississippi exhibited the lowest entrepreneurial rate in 2009, and Oklahoma and Montana had the highest rates. (Source: Kauffman Foundation, 05/20/10) Note: Mississippi Enterprise for Technology is a business incubator at Stennis Space Center, Miss.