About 2.4 million businesses are in areas most vulnerable to hurricanes
As the 2020 hurricane season gets underway, emergency officials pay attention to the growing share (29 percent) of the U.S. population in the nation’s 255 coastline counties, says a US Census Bureau report. They’re also looking at ways to minimize the impact of a hurricane on coastline businesses that employ local residents and serve an even larger share of the regional and state economy.
Of the 7.8 million employer businesses in the United States, 2.5 million (or 31.9 percent) are in coastline counties. These businesses employed 37.1 million workers (28.9 percent of the national total), who earned $2.3 trillion in annual payroll in 2017.