How Many Americans Are Self-Employed in 2023?
The benefits of being self-employed are clear—work flexibility, not having to answer to a boss, getting to choose the work you want to do, and more.
If you’re thinking about becoming a self-employed worker in the US, it helps to get an overview of the trends and statistics about self-employment—more specifically, understand how many Americans are self-employed.
Number of self-employed in the US in 2022 and 2023
According to the latest figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), as of March 2023, the number of self-employed people in the US is 9.84 million. This represents a 2.77% dip from the previous month and a 1.65% annual decrease.
The number of self-employed in the US has been fluctuating over the past year. In March 2022, there were just over 10 million self-employed. This fell below the 10 million mark in April, only to rise above 10 million again in May. This was followed by three consecutive months of decline, and the number of self-employed in the US dropped to 9.64 million in August.
The highest number of self-employed recorded so far in 2023 was in February, at 10.12 million.
Coronavirus impact on the number of self-employed in the US
In 2020, the number of self-employed in the US tumbled as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The lowest number recorded was in April 2020. At 8.25 million, this was an 11% year-over-year decrease, and the first time the number of self-employed workers in the US fell below 9 million in at least seven years.
The decline in the number of self-employed in the US was caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in work losses for many of the self-employed in the US. This is no surprise, as self-employed workers are among the most vulnerable during economic downturns and tend to be the first ones to be made redundant.
According to the BLS, self-employed workers were “much more likely” to have lost work as a result of the recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic than workers in the private and government sectors.
This was most evident in May 2020, during which 42.2% of self-employed workers said they weren’t able to work at some point in the past month as a result of the pandemic. The situation has improved since. The latest figures from September 2022 show that just 2% of self-employed workers in the US continue to struggle with this problem.
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