What is the most abundant type of business in America?
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M$5 Answers
According to an article I found, 700,000 of the counted farms are so called micro-farms which are on the rise.
By the North American Industry Classification System the largest category of farms is "cattle and calves" with roughly 650,000. Followed by "other crops and hay" with 500,000 farms in America, according to the 2007 census (the results to which were released in February 2009).
I would include more graphs but they are given as PDF's by the United States Department of Agriculture, so you will have to check the sources I gave below.
I'm trying to think of a more abundant business but I think I found the answer with farms/agriculture, counting 2,204,792 in total according to the 2007 census. We all gotta eat, but the food must come from somewhere ;)
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M$
Based on your guess I assume you are speaking of the number of locations for something such as gas stations or coffee shops. You would count all of the locations on their own, as opposed to counting each of the companies. In this case, I would agree with you that gas stations seem rather ubiquitous (in fact, Wikipedia says we have 121,446 in the US alone). Despite this, I believe that (using general categories) "Restaurants" would trump it. If we were to separate sit-down restaurants and fast food, fast food still might win against Gas Stations, given that where there is a gas station, there is often fast food nearby in triplicate.
If you are talking about what business is the most profitable, Oil and Gas Services is only number nine (according to this year's Fortune 500), while food services is only number thirteen. Fortune rates the most profitable industry as "Network and Other Communications Equipment", with "Internet Services and Retailing" being a close second.
If you are talking about the most popular kinds of small businesses, then once again it is difficult to find out. I searched for a definitive answer, but got nothing. This one again will have to be conjecture. According to about.com small business, eco-friendly businesses are growing in popularity, but I know already that there are a ton of internet start-ups around, so I would guess it would be internet companies, just like Mahalo.
I hope you found this answer nice and thorough. If you wish to clarify your question more and ask again, I would be more than willing to take a direct question.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2009/
http://sbinformation.about.com/od/startingabusiness/a/biztrends_2.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2009/sb20090724_686923.htm
http://projects.flowingdata.com/walmart/ (this was something interesting I stumbled upon, I thought people might enjoy it)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filling_station
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M$
Between legal pharmacuticals and illegal "street" drug sales, drugs are something everyone loves to buy for one reason or another.
Legal drugs are everywhere and with a booming elderly "boomer" generation and even larger generations after that aging and needing more drugs in the future due to a "treat not cure" attitude in the health care "industry",drug sales will continue to rise accordingly... and illegal drugs on top of that makes drug sales a contender for the "most abundant" business in America.
http://www.patentdocs.org/2009/06/future-drug-sales-predictions-highlight-importance-of-followon-biologics-legislation.html
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M$
As for the most abundant type of business, if you want to count by number of stores, fast food would probably be right.
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M$
Hmm I reviewed it after I read your comment, I guess if the micro farms are really just hobby farmers/gardeners you cannot compare that to small restaurant because they certainly earn more than $1000 pa, even if its a Taco Stand.
Strangely that doesn't seem to agree with figures from the SBA which only seems show at most a tenth of that number of businesses in agriculture.
p107 of this PDF
http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/sb_econ2009.pdf
If 2m+ farms is right, then it could well be the biggest sector.
Btw, the micro-farms seem to have sales less than $1000 pa, and maybe are more hobbies that make a few bucks than proper businesses.