The majority of all new jobs in the U.S. are created by startups and small and medium-sized businesses -- and that entrepreneurial engine has slowed down considerably.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the lines for the total number of business startups and business closures per year -- the birth and death rates of American companies with one or more employees -- crossed for the first time in 2008. In the nearly 30 years before that, the U.S. consistently averaged a surplus of almost 120,000 more business births than deaths each year.
