By Adam Pagnucco.
Part One summarized the premise of this series: an examination of key stats from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) comparing Montgomery County to its largest neighbors. Part Two looked at population. Part Three looked at gross domestic product (GDP). Part Four looked at per capita GDP. Part Five looked at personal income. Part Six looked at per capita personal income. Part Seven looked at wage and salary employment. Now let’s look at proprietors employment – jobs held by the self-employed.
Self-employment is a big part of the local economy. In 2022, 31.7% of MoCo’s total employment was comprised of proprietors jobs. That’s higher than the region’s percentage of 25.4%. Among other big jurisdictions near us, only Prince William (at 33.3%) and Prince George’s (at 32.2%) exceed us, and not by much.
The chart below shows the growth in proprietor percentage of total employment for both MoCo (in red) and the region (in green) since 1969. This demonstrates the incomplete nature of analyzing payroll employment alone.
This chart shows proprietor employment growth for the large jurisdictions in the region in the most recent year measured.
MoCo posted one of the better performances in the region, though it did not exceed the region average by much.
Now let’s look at the five-year change.
MoCo did not meet the region’s average during this period but it did not trail by a lot.
This chart shows the ten-year change.
While MoCo grew its proprietor base by a third in the last decade, that was worst among the region’s large jurisdictions. That said, MoCo proprietor jobs grew at a rate of ten times that of its wage and salary jobs. That reinforces the county’s shift towards self-employment.
MoCo has seen steady growth in self-employment over the last fifty years, but its share of the region’s self-employed is falling. The chart below shows MoCo’s percentage of the region’s proprietors employment since 1969.
Let’s remember that these are not only jobs – many of them are businesses. As MoCo’s payroll jobs and its self-employed jobs both shrink relative to its neighbors, its economy is probably destined to follow.
One of the many differences between payroll work and self-employed work is the huge variability in earnings of the latter. We will look at proprietors income next.