EDITORIAL: Despite COVID, entrepreneurship soars

A global pandemic may not be an ideal time to start a business. That didn’t keep millions from doing it anyway.

U.S. entrepreneurs have already created nearly 5 million new businesses this year, through November. That’s significant, especially when you look at previous years. In 2019, they created 3.5 million new companies. In 2020, that number rose to 4.4 million. The data comes from the Census Bureau.

The numbers show that entrepreneurs started 42 percent more businesses in 11 months this year than they did in all of 2019.

That statistic is startling for many reasons. Most obviously, the coronavirus pandemic threw the entire country and globe into upheaval. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died. Tens of millions of people lost their jobs. Tens of thousands of businesses closed, their difficulties compounded by heavy-handed government mandates.

The future is uncertain, too. The omicron wave is rapidly bearing down upon the country. While there’s plenty of evidence that this variant is milder than delta, some Democratic-run locales are preparing new restrictions. Those could do lasting damage to new businesses.

Yet, entrepreneurs are taking the leap in ever-larger numbers. This is the promise and beauty of America’s dynamic free-market economy. Opportunity abounds for those who seek it, and the American spirit of ingenuity marches on even as some seek to erect more and more barriers to limit consensual commerce or prevent newcomers from entering the marketplace.

That latter attitude has, unfortunately, become more prevalent with Democrats in control of the White House and Congress. The message from the progressives now dominating the Democratic Party is that Americans should depend on the government for their happiness and sustenance. President Joe Biden’s agenda seeks to expand government dependency rather than to promote long-term self-sufficiency — to create a government hammock instead of a safety net.

It is a tribute to the American spirit that millions of entrepreneurs are willing to take the risk of starting businesses even during difficult economic times. Many of these businesses will fail, but the companies started this year that succeed will likely employ millions of Americans in the coming decades.

President Biden and Congress, along with state and local officials, should be doing everything possible to encourage these risk-takers instead of actively working to increase taxes and regulations that burden fledgling enterprises.

Not even a pandemic can stop millions of Americans from pursuing their version of the American Dream. Bravo.