Small Business Saturday — the Saturday after Thanksgiving — draws attention to the important role that independent merchants in New Mexico play in the local, state, and national economy.

Local shopping — not just during the critical holiday season but throughout the year — benefits the community in numerous ways. Local businesses hire local workers; on a larger scale, small businesses created 63 percent of net jobs created in the United States between 1993 and 2013, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Shopping locally also keeps more money circulating at home among area businesses, and it generates tax revenue that supports public services such as police and fire departments, schools and parks. For every $100 spent at a locally owned business, $68 stays in the community, whereas $100 spent at a national chain leaves only $43 at home, according to statistics compiled by CustomMade, an online marketplace for custom goods. “Money spent at a local business generates 3.5 times more wealth for the local economy compared to money spent at a chain-owned business.”

Shopping close to home also reduces environmental impacts associated with packaging, processing and shipping goods over long distances, according to Environmental Protection Agency data that were part of the CustomMade survey.

But local businesses deserve to be patronized for reasons that go beyond job creation and support to the local tax base. Entrepreneurs who choose to provide a product or service where they live take significant risk to meet local needs, including the risk that they’ll be undercut by businesses based elsewhere. Loss of these businesses is a form of economic desertification that can strip a local community of its distinctiveness and independence.

By shopping locally on Small Business Saturday — and throughout the year — New Mexicans help themselves and their communities for the long term.