A week ago National Small Business WeekA new study examines some surprising things that millions of small businesses across the US have in common.

or Pew Research Center Survey released Monday, looked at Census Bureau data points associated with 33 million small businesses across the US. The study defined “small business” as a firm with fewer than 500 workers, with at least one location.

In the report, small businesses largely had one big thing in common: they rarely had employees. In fact, 27 million, or about 82%, had no employees, and about 3 million businesses with employees had only one to four people on their payroll.

However, small businesses employed 56.4 million people in 2021 and generated more than $16.2 trillion in revenue. Larger businesses with more than 100 employees captured larger parts of the revenue pie, although they accounted for less than 1% of the overall picture.

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Also, most small businesses are not mom-and-pop stores, according to the survey. One in 10 US businesses were owned and operated equally by spouses, and only 27% were family-owned overall.

They are usually not franchises. The majority of small businesses (95%) reported that they did not operate fully or partially as franchises.

Most of the businesses surveyed, almost three in five, have been in operation for at least six years and 15% have been in operation for more than a quarter of a century.

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Even small businesses share a positive public perception. A majority of Americans (86%) indicated that small businesses positively affect the country individually Pew Research poll performed in January. In contrast, only 53% thought positively of technology companies and colleges.

or Continuous contact survey released on Monday presents a global picture, showing that more than 80% of 1,300 small businesses surveyed in the US, Australia, UK and Canada expressed concern about how the economic climate will affect their business this year.

Pew Research reports that the number of business apps in the US has growing trendwith nearly 1.8 million applications submitted last year.