> In 1900, 90% of Americans were self employed; now it's about 2% Citation, please? That 1900 percentage seems way off. Just looking at child labor, which was

> In 1900, 90% of Americans were self employed; now it's about 2% Citation, please? That 1900 percentage seems way off. Just looking at child labor, which was 6% of the workforce in 1900 [0], they weren't all self-employed shoeshines or paperboys. Think about agriculture, which was already less than 50% of employment by 1900 but much bigger than today, do you think 90% of those people were working their own farms rather than farm hands, ranch hands working for someone else? The US Census didn't collect this kind of data until decades later so it's hard to find good numbers. This blog post [1] references a much older column that said 50% were self-employed in 1900. Regarding the 2% today, in 2015 Rick Santorum said 10% of American's own their own business which PolitiFact rated as Mostly True [2]. [0] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/cwc/american-labor-in-the-20th-century.pdf https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/cwc/american-labor-in-the-20th-... [1] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/don-mcnay/are-you-ready-to-jump-int_b_922926.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/don-mcnay/are-you-ready-to-ju... [2] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/apr/13/rick-santorum/90-american-workers-dont-own-their-own-business-ri/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/apr/...