Study: Memphis welcomes women

It’s one of best business places for entrepreneurs

Tennessee is a great place for women wanting to start their own business, according to new findings by the website magnifymoney.com.

An analysis using a number of carefully weighted criteria found that Memphis and Nashville are among the top five cities among the 50 largest for women entrepreneurs. Memphis ranks No. 4 on the list, followed by Nashville at No. 5. Two California cities – San Francisco in the top spot and San Jose at No. 3 – and Austin, Texas, at No. 2 complete the top five.

The findings state that Memphis stands out for a high median income for women entrepreneurs, just over $9,000 annually, which ranks second only to San Francisco’s median of just over $10,000. Many women entrepreneurs use income from a business as supplemental income, at least initially.

Nashville is cited for a strong average business income for women, just over $23,000.

“Self-employed women in this city make just under half a typical woman worker’s earned income,” the survey says. “This is a sign that striking out on their own is a viable way for women to earn a decent living in Nashville.”

In Memphis, Gwendolyn Tucker said the city has multiple incubator programs that make it strong for startups.

“Memphis, for a number of years, has been known as a place for entrepreneurship,” said Tucker, president of the Memphis chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners.

Tucker said what the numbers in the Magnify Money survey really show her, however, is that growing women-owned businesses is more of a challenge than starting them.

Kali McFadden, senior research analyst at MagnifyMoney, agreed. She said the findings show that most women are not getting by on their business income alone.

The highest median income found for women-led businesses is San Francisco’s figure of $10,378. Across all 50 metro areas surveyed, the median selfowned business income was only about 10 percent of the local median wage for all working women.

“This is not surprising,” McFadden said, “as self-employment could mean anything from having an Etsy store or offering a few hours of labor on TaskRabbit, to owning a bed and breakfast or gas station, to being a high-dollar commercial realtor or blockbuster novelist.”

In Memphis, specifically, Tucker said many jobs are low-wage. That means that those employed and with businesses on the side may still be at or close to the poverty level in many cases.

Still, the survey found that those cities ranking high on the list have positives on which they can build.

“In the best cities for women entrepreneurs,” the findings noted, “women who work for themselves are more likely to earn a decent living by doing so. These cities also tend to have higher rates of women who are self-employed, a sign that conditions could be favorable to workers ready to go it alone.”

The methodology for the survey used eight factors from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2016 and weighted the scores for the 50 largest metropolitan areas. Factors included such statistics as the median and average incomes for self-employed women, the ratio of average and median income for self-employed women to that of the metro area as a whole, and the percentage of self-employed people who are women.