One of the great things about the United States, people will remind you, is that it's the land where your dreams can come true if you work hard enough to achieve your goals. 

That dream might consist of owning and growing your own business, but according to one presidential candidate, the odds of that succeeding are against you.

In a taped presentation shown at Gov. Scott's Economic Growth Summit held in early June, U.S. Sen. and presidential candidate Marco Rubio noted that it's tougher for a business to succeed than it has been for a long time. At the summit, Rubio said this:

"For the first time in 35 years, we have more businesses dying than we do starting."

Our partners at PolitiFact Florida took a look at Rubio's claim to see if he was correct about the death rate of businesses. and rated it TRUE. PolitiFact reporter Joshua  says that the statistics accurately back up his claim.

"What Rubio is referring to here is a 2014 Brookings Institution study," said Gillin. "The data in that study looked at businesses that were being created and businesses that were going out of business between 1978 and 2011. We talked to one of the study's authors, and he said that Sen. Rubio is citing the statistics accurately."

Gillin noted that it couldn't be boiled down to one specific thing. "For whatever reason, be it consolidation or something else, there are a lot of factors at play here that contributed to businesses dying at a faster rate than they were being created," Gillin said. "The stats show that this trend started back in 2008 and it's a trend that's continuing today."

Because Sen. Rubio cited the report correctly and used the numbers in the correct context, his claim rates TRUE by PolitiFact.

SOURCES: More businesses dying than starting?