Politicians drumming up support love to say that small business is the economic engine of America.

A new study shows that's not all talk: The smallest businesses create the biggest number of jobs, according to an analysis of census data by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Between 2002 and 2003 (the most recent years for which figures are available), companies with fewer than 20 employees added a combined 1.6 million jobs to the nation's work force, according to the report by the SBA's Office of Advocacy.

That's four times as many jobs as were added by slightly bigger companies: Businesses with 20-to-499 employees added a combined 400,000 jobs.

Meanwhile, the country's biggest corporations were a drain on job creation: Companies employing 500 or more had a net loss of 1 million jobs.

In Florida, small businesses added 184,405 jobs during the period studied.

The SBA report also confirmed another business adage -- that failure is a big part of the small-business equation.

The report found that, while 612,296 companies were created during the period, 540,648 went out of business -- a failure rate of 88 percent.

Asian-owned businesses

Census-data crunching has found another growth machine: Asian-American entrepreneurs.

The number of Asian-American start-ups is growing at twice the national pace for all businesses, and Florida is one of the top states for the boom, according to a recent U.S. Census Bureau report.

Asian-owned businesses grew 24 percent from 1997 to 2002, totaling 1.1 million businesses. Those companies generated more than $326 billion in revenue, up 8 percent from 1997.

"The robust revenues of Asian-owned firms and the growth in the number of businesses provide yet another indicator that minority entrepreneurs are at the forefront as engines for growth in our economy," Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon said in a statement.

Nearly half of all Asian firms were Chinese- or Indian-owned. Korean firms were the next largest segment, followed by Vietnamese, Filipino and Japanese companies.

Almost a third of Asian-American companies had paid employees, providing jobs for more than 2.2 million people.

Other highlights from the report:

California had the most Asian-owned firms, followed by New York and Texas. Florida came in seventh.

Wholesale and retail trade accounted for 47 percent of all Asian-owned business revenue.