Business applications are on the rise in the U.S., as more Americans trade being an employee for being an owner. According to the United States Census Bureau, there were 429,000 new business applications in February. This is an increase of 1.9 percent over January. 

With more than 4.4 million businesses launched in the U.S. every year, this is a sign that the U.S. is continuing to recover from the obstacles of the pandemic, when many businesses were forced to close. 

According to the Commerce Institute, more than 5 million new businesses were started in 2022. Experts believe this is a signal that new businesses will continue to trend upward well into 2023. 

In 2021, there were 5.4 million new business applications filed, the highest number in recorded history and an increase of 53 percent over 2019. 

According to the Chamber of Commerce, it will continue to be a challenge for new businesses to stay alive beyond two years. The failure rate for new businesses beyond two years is 70 percent, while only 50 percent of businesses survived longer than five years and just 30 percent make it to 10 years. 

Meanwhile, some experts also believe that these numbers may be inflated due to the backlog of business applications that are now being processed post-pandemic. However, other experts believe that the pandemic itself was the driving force convincing many people to leave the workforce and use stimulus checks and employment insurance to start their own businesses.