[bigmanwalter]

I don't quite agree with the risk angle because generally people who start their own businesses do so with strong family safety nets or with capital that they amassed in high paying professions. If their business fails, they are usually still ] better off than their employees.

[increment_i]

I very much doubt this is the case. In 2011, over half a million businesses were started each month in the U.S. in addition to the 23 million small businesses that were already around. Seems unlikely to assume these were all from well to do folks with a strong safety net.

Source: http://censtats.census.gov/cgi-bin/nonemployer/nonsect.pl

[bigmanwalter]

How many poor people have you developed software for personally?