Interesting! And you probably do support wars of choice! Wonder how loud their voices are as to 'sacrificing' for those that do, I mean they do do missionary work!
Utah ranks third-to-last among the states for the percentage of its businesses that veterans own. Some guess it is because fewer Utahns choose to serve in the military, maybe because many young people here choose to serve LDS Church missions instead.
The finding of low veteran business ownership comes from data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau from its 2007 Survey of Business Owners. For the first time ever, that survey included asking whether business owners are veterans.
It found they own 9 percent of all businesses in the nation. “Veteran-owned businesses make a valuable contribution to the economy, but until now, we did not have a benchmark that measured their role,” said Census Bureau Deputy Director Thomas Mesenbourg.
But in Utah, the survey estimated that only 7.2 percent of businesses are owned by veterans — or about 20 percent lower than the national average. It said veterans owned about 17,716 of the 246,393 businesses in Utah in 2007.
Utah’s rate tied with Illinois for third-worst among the states, trailing only New York (6.5 percent) and California (7.0 percent).
On the other end of the spectrum, states with the highest percentage of their businesses owned by veterans were South Carolina (12.9), West Virginia (12.6) and Virginia (12.4).
Census and Small Business Administration officials speaking on a national conference call about the findings said they were not sure why Utah finished low in the rankings.
“I honestly don’t know,” said Willaim D. Elmore, associate administrator for veterans business development with the SBA. But he guessed, “Perhaps there has just not been a strong history of national service in the military services from the families in Utah, but that’s just a guess.”
Terry Schow, executive director of the Utah Department of Veterans Affairs, said Elmore’s guess could be correct. {continued}
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