Even before the COVID-19 pandemic spurred millions of Americans to question their work-life balance – and promptly quit their jobs, more than 10 million U.S. households reported that they were their own boss, either part or all of the time. A Social Explorer analysis of 2015-19 American Community Survey data finds the largest share of self-employed Americans lived in metro and micro areas that would become Meccas for remote workers during the pandemic.

Roughly 1 in 9 U.S. households reported some form of self-employment income in 2019. Fredericksburg, an idyllic tourist destination in the Texas Hill Country, reported 22.5 percent of its 10,700 households had some form of self-employment income, the highest in the nation. It was followed by Truckee, Calif., a resort town barely a dozen miles from Lake Tahoe (20.7 percent); and Rockport, a south Texas beach town (20.1 percent).

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Households with Self-Employment Income, 2019. Click here to explore further.

Author: Frank Bass