U.S. entrepreneurship reached a 14-year high last year, as more people searching for work turned to starting their own businesses, according to a report released by Kansas City, Mo.-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
But despite national trends, Minnesota ranked among five states holding the lowest rate of entrepreneurial activity, with 220 entrepreneurs for every 100,000 adults, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity report.
Other low-ranking states were Mississippi, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Alabama.
Entrepreneurial activity was measured by the average amount of adults between the ages of 20 to 64 who started businesses each month in 2009.
The states that had the most entrepreneurial activity last year was Oklahoma and Montana, with 470 entrepreneurs for every 100,000 adults, more than double Minnesota's rate.
The Midwest in general tends to be weaker in entrepreneurial activity compared to other parts of the nation such as the western and southern states, because of population growth and the rate of construction, said the study's author Robert W. Fairlie. Fairlie is a professor of economics at University of California, Santa Cruz.
Minnesota's entrepreneurship activity increased slightly last year compared to 2008, the index said. However, in a ten-year period, the state's entrepreneurship activity index declined by 0.6 percentage points in 2008-2009, compared to 1997-1998, the report said.
