While the troubles facing big business grab headlines, it's the nation's smaller establishments that have been most devastated by the recession. "When you lose them, you've lost something that really hits the local economy," said Richard Stein, senior analyst, at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
Areas that have lost many small businesses during the recession continue to struggle, despite federal and state efforts over the last few years to help smaller companies, he said.
Stein recently worked on a study that identified small business trouble spots in the United States based on Census Bureau County Business Pattern data, between 2006 and 2008, the most recent Census information available.
Out of the largest 50 areas, 10 of them sustained small business losses of 2 percent or more, according to the study.
A two percent loss is high, said Stein. Indeed. One area -- the Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Pompano Beach region in Florida -- lost more than 3,000 small businesses.
"From the perspective of small business, it is likely that many of those same areas continue to suffer," said Stein. "And, yes, small business does find it more challenging to recover after recession. Research and data agree on the fact.''
A low loan failure rate is a vote of confidence both for the franchise business model -- or concept -- and for the people involved. The following franchises all had relatively low loan failure rates.
