Are rising student loan levels choking off entrepreneurship among America’s young people? Numerous authors, from Purdue University President Mitch Daniels to Forbes Magazine’s Steve Denning, have argued that they are. But the data disagrees.
Let’s start with the facts. Fewer young people today are in business for themselves than was the case 25 years ago. The Wall Street Journal analyzed data from the Federal Reserve and found that the share of households led by someone under 30 that owned a business, fell from nearly 11 percent in 1989 to less than 4 percent in 2013.
