83% of Americans View Business Ownership as a Viable Alternative to Traditional Jobs
Americans see business ownership as a stronger opportunity than traditional jobs
70% of Americans believe business ownership offers greater opportunities-like career stability and financial growth-than traditional jobs in today’s economy, with younger generations even more optimistic.
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MillennialsAges 29-44 · Most optimistic cohort79%
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Gen ZAges 18-28 · Strongly optimistic73%
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Gen XAges 45-60 · Solid majority71%
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Baby BoomersAges 61-79 · Still majority, but less intense60%
Ageism and Employment Choices
Percentage who say business ownership is the best protection against ageism
Business ownership as the key to thriving in an AI-driven world
61% of Americans say business ownership is the key to thriving in an AI-driven world, with even stronger agreement among younger generations.
Believe business ownership is the best way to thrive amid AI-related disruption.
Young workers are especially likely to see ownership as their path to stability in an AI era.
The most confident group: over seven in ten say business ownership is the key to thriving with AI.
Gen X closely mirrors the national average in seeing ownership as protection in an AI-driven world.
Parents & Business Ownership Support
Three in Four parents
Most parents see helping fund a child’s business as a powerful long-term investment, with Millennials and Gen X most likely to prioritize it over traditional milestones like weddings or a first home.
More than four in five parents say funding a child’s business is a good investment in their long-term financial security.
Six in ten Gen Z parents prioritize business support over traditional milestones.
Nearly eight in ten Millennials strongly favor funding a child’s business.
Gen X parents closely follow Millennials in prioritizing business funding.
Six in ten Boomer parents say supporting a child’s business is a priority.
This survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of The Entrepreneur's Source from October 8-10, 2025 among 2,087 adults ages 18 and older, among whom 1,313 are parents. Data were weighted where necessary by age, gender, race/ethnicity, region, education, marital status, household size, household income, and political party affiliation, to bring them in line with their actual proportions in the population. Respondents are selected among those who have agreed to participate in our surveys. The sampling precision of Harris online polls is measured by using a Bayesian credible interval. The sample data is accurate to within +/- 2.5 percentage points using a 95% confidence level. This credible interval will be wider among subsets of the surveyed population of interest. All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to other multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including, but not limited to coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and ad