BLS Business Employment Dynamics — ~20–22% of US establishments fail Y1; ~49.6% five-year survival; ~65% failed by Y10

Claim: BLS Business Employment Dynamics: ~20–22% of US establishments fail in year 1; five-year survival is ~49.6% for the canonical March 1994 cohort and ranges 49.8–57.3% across cohorts per BLS Table 7 ("Survival of private sector establishments by opening year"); ~65% have failed by year 10.

Source: US BLS Business Employment Dynamics, Table 7.

Confidence: Verified (government data).

Why this matters for Candid: Decomposes "dead site" causes. A dead site frequently reflects a dead business, not platform failure. When a customer cites a half-empty list of abandoned builder sites as evidence the platform doesn't work, the BLS curve is the first thing to bring up — about half of any cohort of small businesses is gone by year 5 regardless of platform. See R4 — Use BLS business-survival data to decompose "dead site" causes — many are dead businesses, not platform failure.