The number of new U.S. businesses judged most likely to hire is running about a third above its pre-pandemic level, and the Midwest is a steady part of that total. Americans filed roughly 1.72 million high-propensity applications, the Census Bureau’s read on likely employer businesses, in the 12 months to June, up about 31% on 2019.
The finding comes from an analysis of Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics by Mandoe Media, a digital signage company that works with restaurants, shops and gyms. On the Census Bureau’s four-region breakdown, the Midwest accounts for 16.4% of all new applications and 15.7% of those most likely to become employers.
That likely-employer pipeline averages roughly 143,700 filings a month. The measure leans on consumer-facing sectors, because retail and food service are among the industries that qualify a filing, so it tracks the kind of shop or diner that opens on a main street and needs customers from day one.
Against the rest of the country, the South leads at 45% of all new applications and the West follows at 24.4%, with the Midwest’s 16.4% share sitting ahead of the Northeast. The consumer-facing tilt is clear in the sector detail: in the latest single month, retail drew about 77,200 applications nationally and accommodation and food services about 26,800.
“The pipeline is averaging around 143,000 likely-employer filings a month, and the Midwest is a steady part of that,” said Paul Madden at Mandoe Media. “Every new shop or diner has to communicate what it sells and what it costs from the day it opens.”
Growth has held up, with high-propensity applications rising 2.3% on the prior 12 months. Applications of every kind reached about 6.02 million over the year, though only 28.6% were high-propensity, down from 37.6% in 2019, so the 1.72 million is the number that tracks businesses likely to open and hire.
Mandoe Media compiled the study from public Census Bureau data retrieved through the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Industry detail is published nationally and geographic detail as a total across all industries, so the regional figure covers all sectors rather than singling out storefronts. What the data does show plainly is the scale of the pipeline nationally, and a Midwest that has kept pace rather than fallen back as the wider wave has grown.