The Incredible Disappearing MIDDLE MARKET

Even amid a startup boom, midsize companies have started vanishing. Are we losing an important part of the economy?

- James Surowiecki

Something very strange has been happening in the business world lately: Midsize companies are quietly disappearing. This is happening even as entrepreneurship in the U.S. economy is booming. From 2021 to 2024, Americans filed 21 million new business applications, a welcome startup renaissance. Meanwhile, the number of midsize companies has plateaued and, depending on your definition, even dropped. Companies with 100 to 499 employees now account for fewer than 1 percent of all U.S. firms, and the number of companies with 250 to 499 employees has fallen by 22.5 percent since 2020, according to research by Doug Tatum, who teaches at the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship at Florida State University and is the author of No Man's Land: Where Growing Companies Fail.