Microenterprising and People with Disabilities: Strategies for Success and Failure - Statistical Data Included

Journal of Rehabilitation,  April-June, 2001  by Richard T. Walls,  Denetta L. Dowler,  Kimberly Cordingly,  Louis E. Orslene,  John D. Greer

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The Small Business Administration (SBA) defines a "very small business" as having (a) no more than 15 employees and (b) annual receipts that do not exceed $1 million. Based on the Federal tax incentive definition, a "small business" is a business whose gross receipts did not exceed $1 million for the preceding taxable year or that employed not more than 30 full-time employees during the preceding year. The SBA, however, has definitions of small business that vary depending on the Standard Industry Classification code and group (U.S. Small Business Administration, 2000). Such variation can be confusing. For example, cereal breakfast foods manufacturing, gypsum products manufacturing, metal cans manufacturing, and railroad equipment manufacturing have a criterion of 1,000 employees for a "small business." Natural gas distribution, coal mining, and water transportation have a criterion of 500 employees. Agricultural services, airports, and radio broadcasting stations have a criterion of $5 million. For chicken egg production, the criterion is $9 million, but for beef cattle feedlots, it is $1.5 million. Such breadth of definition indicates an economic sector in transition. Thus, this lack of completely coherent concept is likely to confuse people seeking to begin a small business or a microenterprise and may contribute to the misunderstanding that occurs between the person with disability and traditional small-business resources.

A traditional measure of the success of a business is income. In a report to the Office of Microenterprise Development (USAID), Inserra (1996) suggested that usable indexes of financial information might involve (a) gathering qualitative data on the existence of change, direction of change, or amount of change in microenterprise income, (b) using existing financial records, and (c) seeking figures for revenues separately from costs. Gaining accurate income data about microenterprise, based on respondent recall and report, however, is subject to considerable inaccuracy. Moreover, income may not be the most telling measure of success. From a rehabilitation perspective, measures of success need to be tied to the reasons for exploring the microenterprise option. Those goals are specific to the individual and may include (a) increasing control over work load and scheduling, (b) resolving mobility or accommodation concerns, (c) increasing income and self-sufficiency, and (d) engaging in meaningful work. Personal benefits also may include greater participation and inclusion in the community, enhanced status, and increased self-confidence (Rehabilitation Services Administration, 1998). Perhaps the most telling criterion measure is survival of the microenterprise.

Historically, state vocational rehabilitation agencies have had a mixed view of self-employment as a viable vocational goal for people with disabilities (Ravesloot & Seekins, 1996). The reasons for this mixed view are diverse. Probably, the reasons revolve around the agencies' intention to protect the best interests of their clients. One belief is that business development is a precarious enterprise both for people with functional limitations and for those in the general population. Placement into the traditional workforce, therefore, is seen to be a more secure goal. The belief persists that failure rates in the population of small business enterprises tend to be high. First, that perception may be exaggerated (Rural Research Institute, 1999), and second, the goals of the microenterprise may not be the same as the goals of "small business."