Americans like to think of themselves as a go-getting, self-starting, entrepreneurial society. But just how entrepreneurial are we?

Well, thanks to a new study from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, we may have an answer. The foundation estimates that there were approximately 464,000 people creating new businesses each month in 2005, or 0.29 percent of the total adult population. The rate has held pretty much steady over the past decade. The states with the highest rates of entrepreneurial activity were Vermont, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. The states with the lowest rates were Delaware, West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. (The average for the states with the highest rates of entrepreneurial activity is three times higher than the average for the five lowest states.)