WORCESTER, MA (September 20, 2018) — A local hardware store in Worcester, Massachusetts recently announced that it was going out of business. This wouldn’t be big news, except Elwood Adams Hardware has been around since the Articles of Confederation. Dating back to 1782, it is (or was) one of the oldest hardware stores in the United States—continually open for 235 years under various owners.
According to the US Small Business Administration, small businesses account for 48% of national employment in the United States. In number, they represent 99.7% of all businesses in the country. Small business owners, some with staffs of 500 employees, others toiling alone in a home office, and plenty more in-between, are the stewards of an enormous segment of the American economy.
In the demise of Elwood Adams Hardware, we can see two forces at work that may figure to change the landscape of American small businesses and entrepreneurship. There is the continuing disruptive dominance of the Internet in the commercial sphere. And, perhaps less well-observed, there are the swelling ranks of retired-or-retiring Baby Boomers, and the emergence of the Millennials to replace them as the brunt of the workforce in the United States.
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