Liz Mair is President of Mair Strategies, a strategic communications and public affairs firm that advises FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies, as well as candidates and officeholders in the UK Conservative and American Republican parties.
New data out of the US-based Harris Poll contains some bad news for Brits who worry that the country is insufficiently entrepreneurial to grow and thrive in a rapidly-changing 21st century economy. The numbers make for yet more depressing reading for those of us who believe that in order to grow the UK economically and enrich our population, we need more, not fewer, business startups and expansions.
The old saying goes that Britain is a nation of shopkeepers. Despite that, the Harris data indicates that its current entrepreneurial ambitions are too tame when compared to key competitors—the US, Australia and Spain.
While more of us do feel that business ownership provides more financial security than traditional employment, Harris’ data shows the UK lagging behind every other country surveyed except for Canada on this key marker. Only 36 percent of us consider business ownership to be the better pathway versus 25 percent who say the same about a standard job—a mere eleven point gap.
By contrast, in all of the US, Australia and Spain, the number of people who see business ownership as a better route to financial security than a regular old “9 to 5” sits exactly at or right below 40 percent, while the “traditional job” figure sits below 20 percent in the US and Australia, and in the low 20s in Spain—a twenty point or even bigger differential.
Unfortunately, Harris’ data line up with other statistics, making it less an outlier and more another chapter of grim reading for champions of Britain’s self-starters.
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data indicates that the UK’s Total Early-Stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) rate, a measure of startup activity among adults between ages 18 and 64 is a full ten points lower than in the US (about 9 to 10 percent in the UK versus about 19 percent in the US).
A comparison of Office for National Statistics and US Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers contains other unpleasant news: While the survival rate for both US and UK businesses over the first year and first three years are about the same, at year five, 57 percent of US businesses are still alive, versus a much lower 38.4 percent in the UK. Sure, some of this covers COVID years, but the reality is that much of the US stayed locked down and shuttered for months or even years than the UK did. The UK also ended mask mandates and similar policies earlier than many major US cities (I was astonished to find on my first business trip back to the UK post-COVID that I was not expected to wear a mask indoors and on public transport; in New York City, the US’ biggest population centre and the world’s number one economic hub, it took many months more to get to that point; even in 2023, St. Louis, a big city in the middle of a fairly red state where most of the population rejected COVID mandates, and where not fully 60 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, was still selling masks, gloves and face shields at its airport).
To state the obvious, these entrepreneurship stats are bad.
While “wealth” has become a dirty word, especially but not entirely on the left, the reality is that making a great, not merely good, living correlates strongly with less reliance on public services and a more secure and reliable tax base from which to fund services for those who fall on hard times (which is what the welfare state really should exist to do).
The UK Wealth and Assets Survey shows a “cumulative effect [of business ownership] on household wealth”—an unsurprising result since this is what all economic data in every nominally or legitimately capitalist country also indicates. By not cultivating vastly more cash-rich entrepreneurs, our leaders are locking the country in a fiscal death trap that is bad for people, whether they are rich, poor, or something in between. The reality is current policy—high taxes and massive regulation—is not only causing entrepreneurs and wealthy people who started out as small business owners to flee our shores. It’s also bound to lead to a situation where “wealth” in the UK looks lopsided and slanted towards the 21st century version of land-rich, cash-poor aristocracy you see in an ITV Agatha Christie period drama. Rich people like this make for a bad tax base; their income isn’t as high as we want it to be, nor is it expanding at the rate we want it to be, and if their “businesses” aren’t expanding, they’re not hiring or increasing pay.
A serious overhaul of this entire situation is needed: Massive deregulation, tax cuts, and, yes, because of the effect that high spending coupled with insufficient revenue coming in to cover it will have on interest rates, spending cuts, too. The books need to balance, and if we’re serious about smart growth that emanates from working class and American-style, not British-style, middle class people, that will inevitably mean spending restraint so we don’t risk a hair-raising redux of the post-Liz Truss mini-budget experience.
Sadly, this is not a priority for the current Government; nor is it likely to become more achievable if Starmer is turfed out and Angela Rayner, hard left contingent takes over. Unfortunately, the UK is heavily centralized. But a priority for the next few years should be as much deregulation and minimisation of the tax burden as is humanly possible at the local level—including, of course, with regard to planning and housing.
Statistics do not lie: The UK is well behind the curve on key entrepreneurship metrics. If we want to thrive as a country, boosting business start-ups, business expansions, and creating an environment that makes survival past the five-year mark more tenable must be a national priority. More government mandates and subsidies cannot drive that, but unleashing would-be entrepreneurs and lightening the regulatory and tax burden for them can make a huge difference.
Liz Mair is President of Mair Strategies, a strategic communications and public affairs firm that advises FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies, as well as candidates and officeholders in the UK Conservative and American Republican parties.
New data out of the US-based Harris Poll contains some bad news for Brits who worry that the country is insufficiently entrepreneurial to grow and thrive in a rapidly-changing 21st century economy. The numbers make for yet more depressing reading for those of us who believe that in order to grow the UK economically and enrich our population, we need more, not fewer, business startups and expansions.
The old saying goes that Britain is a nation of shopkeepers. Despite that, the Harris data indicates that its current entrepreneurial ambitions are too tame when compared to key competitors—the US, Australia and Spain.
While more of us do feel that business ownership provides more financial security than traditional employment, Harris’ data shows the UK lagging behind every other country surveyed except for Canada on this key marker. Only 36 percent of us consider business ownership to be the better pathway versus 25 percent who say the same about a standard job—a mere eleven point gap.
By contrast, in all of the US, Australia and Spain, the number of people who see business ownership as a better route to financial security than a regular old “9 to 5” sits exactly at or right below 40 percent, while the “traditional job” figure sits below 20 percent in the US and Australia, and in the low 20s in Spain—a twenty point or even bigger differential.
Unfortunately, Harris’ data line up with other statistics, making it less an outlier and more another chapter of grim reading for champions of Britain’s self-starters.
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data indicates that the UK’s Total Early-Stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) rate, a measure of startup activity among adults between ages 18 and 64 is a full ten points lower than in the US (about 9 to 10 percent in the UK versus about 19 percent in the US).
A comparison of Office for National Statistics and US Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers contains other unpleasant news: While the survival rate for both US and UK businesses over the first year and first three years are about the same, at year five, 57 percent of US businesses are still alive, versus a much lower 38.4 percent in the UK. Sure, some of this covers COVID years, but the reality is that much of the US stayed locked down and shuttered for months or even years than the UK did. The UK also ended mask mandates and similar policies earlier than many major US cities (I was astonished to find on my first business trip back to the UK post-COVID that I was not expected to wear a mask indoors and on public transport; in New York City, the US’ biggest population centre and the world’s number one economic hub, it took many months more to get to that point; even in 2023, St. Louis, a big city in the middle of a fairly red state where most of the population rejected COVID mandates, and where not fully 60 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, was still selling masks, gloves and face shields at its airport).
To state the obvious, these entrepreneurship stats are bad.
While “wealth” has become a dirty word, especially but not entirely on the left, the reality is that making a great, not merely good, living correlates strongly with less reliance on public services and a more secure and reliable tax base from which to fund services for those who fall on hard times (which is what the welfare state really should exist to do).
The UK Wealth and Assets Survey shows a “cumulative effect [of business ownership] on household wealth”—an unsurprising result since this is what all economic data in every nominally or legitimately capitalist country also indicates. By not cultivating vastly more cash-rich entrepreneurs, our leaders are locking the country in a fiscal death trap that is bad for people, whether they are rich, poor, or something in between. The reality is current policy—high taxes and massive regulation—is not only causing entrepreneurs and wealthy people who started out as small business owners to flee our shores. It’s also bound to lead to a situation where “wealth” in the UK looks lopsided and slanted towards the 21st century version of land-rich, cash-poor aristocracy you see in an ITV Agatha Christie period drama. Rich people like this make for a bad tax base; their income isn’t as high as we want it to be, nor is it expanding at the rate we want it to be, and if their “businesses” aren’t expanding, they’re not hiring or increasing pay.
A serious overhaul of this entire situation is needed: Massive deregulation, tax cuts, and, yes, because of the effect that high spending coupled with insufficient revenue coming in to cover it will have on interest rates, spending cuts, too. The books need to balance, and if we’re serious about smart growth that emanates from working class and American-style, not British-style, middle class people, that will inevitably mean spending restraint so we don’t risk a hair-raising redux of the post-Liz Truss mini-budget experience.
Sadly, this is not a priority for the current Government; nor is it likely to become more achievable if Starmer is turfed out and Angela Rayner, hard left contingent takes over. Unfortunately, the UK is heavily centralized. But a priority for the next few years should be as much deregulation and minimisation of the tax burden as is humanly possible at the local level—including, of course, with regard to planning and housing.
Statistics do not lie: The UK is well behind the curve on key entrepreneurship metrics. If we want to thrive as a country, boosting business start-ups, business expansions, and creating an environment that makes survival past the five-year mark more tenable must be a national priority. More government mandates and subsidies cannot drive that, but unleashing would-be entrepreneurs and lightening the regulatory and tax burden for them can make a huge difference.