How important is small business to the US?

The Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy defines a small business as in independent business having fewer than 500 employees. Here are some interesting statistics from the SBA's website:

Small Businesses:
-Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms
-Employ half of all private sector employees
-Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll
-Generated 65 percent of net NEW JOBS from 1993 to 2009
(remind me why we bailed out a bunch of large companies to save jobs)
-Create more than half of the non-farm private GDP
-Hire 43 percent of all high tech workers
-On average produce 13 times more patents per employee than large firms

Just thought you would like to know.