Community Prosperity/Poverty and Entrepreneurship in United States Counties

This analysis links business sector entrepreneurship and prosperity/poverty levels of 3000 U.S. counties. A community prosperity/poverty continuum based on the enterprise dependency indices of the counties provides 20 bins of 150 counties each. Sector entrepreneurial strengths, expressed as proportions of total bin entrepreneurship, are linked to the prosperity/poverty levels of the binned groups. The entrepreneurial strengths of some business sectors increase in step with increasing community poverty. Other sectors behave oppositely. The null hypothesis that entrepreneurship is quantitatively and qualitatively associated with community prosperity/poverty is accepted. Poverty alleviation efforts should heed these findings.