With Women’s History Month just around the corner and women-owned businesses accounting for nearly a third of all privately held companies in the U.S. and growing 1.5 times faster than the national average, the personal-finance website WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis of 2016’s Best & Worst Metro Areas for Women-Owned Businesses.
To help women advance their goals of entrepreneurship, WalletHub’s analysts compared the 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, across 10 key metrics. Wallet Hub’s data set ranges from average revenue growth of women-owned businesses to presence of women’s business centers to industry variety for women-owned firms.
| Best Metro Areas for Women-Owned Businesses | Worst Metro Areas for Women-Owned Businesses | ||||
| 1 | Nashville, TN | 91 | Portland, OR | ||
| 2 | Chattanooga, TN | 92 | San Diego, CA | ||
| 3 | Columbus, OH | 93 | Scranton, PA | ||
| 4 | Memphis, TN | 94 | Provo, UT | ||
| 5 | Milwaukee, WI | 95 | North Port, FL | ||
| 6 | Rochester, NY | 96 | Pittsburgh, PA | ||
| 7 | Kansas City, MO | 97 | Columbia, SC | ||
| 8 | Spokane, WA | 98 | Greenville, SC | ||
| 9 | Greensboro, NC | 99 | Oxnard, CA | ||
| 10 | Honolulu, HI | 100 | San Jose, CA | ||
Comparing the Best & Worst
- Colorado Springs, Colo., has the highest percentage of women-owned businesses with paid employees, 22.96 percent, which is two times greater than in Syracuse, N.Y., the metro area with the lowest, 13.20 percent.
- McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, has the highest percentage of employees in women-owned businesses with paid employees, 13.71 percent, which is three times greater than in Des Moines-West Des Moines, Iowa, the metro area with the lowest, 4.25 percent.
- Fresno, Calif., has the highest average revenue of women-owned businesses with paid employees, $2,337,830, which is five times more than in Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, Fla., the metro area with the lowest, $520,939.
- McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, has the highest industry variety for women-owned firms, which is two times greater than in Salt Lake City, the metro area with the lowest.
For the full report and to see where your metro area ranks, please visit:
https://wallethub.com/edu/
Jay Jay Ghatt is also editor at Techyaya.com, founder of the JayJayGhatt.com and JayJayGhatt.com where she teaches online creators how to navigate digital entrepreneurship and offers Do-It-For-You Blogging Service. She manages her lifestyle sites BellyitchBlog, Jenebaspeaks and JJBraids.com and is the founder of BlackWomenTech.com 200 Black Women in Tech On Twitter. Her biz podcast 10 Minute Podcast is available on iTunes and Player.fm. Follow her on Twitter at @Jenebaspeaks. Buy her templates over at her legal and business templates on Etsy shop!
