CNBC has put out its rankings of Top States for Business in 2023, scoring all 50 states on 86 metrics in ten categories. Categories are weighted based on economic development strategies and are developed from consulting with business and policy experts.
Georgia fared quite well in this year’s rankings, coming in top five overall, ahead of Minnesota and behind Tennessee. North Carolina took the top spot, with Virginia at number two. In addition to its top five ranking overall, the Peach State earned the top ranking in infrastructure.
The report noted that the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law, is powering an “infrastructure renaissance.” The infrastructure category is the second most important category in the rankings, behind Workforce (where Georgia placed eighth). The infrastructure category includes a broad swath of inputs that impact business and quality of life, from bridges and railroads to power grid reliability and broadband connectivity.
With nearly 80 million people within 500 miles of the state, business owners have access to plenty of consumers and can save on shipping costs. Compare that to Colorado in the wide-open west and just out of reach of California – with just 17.3 million within 500 miles.
“The infrastructure law has already sent Georgia more than $302 million for its airports to help manage all that growth. After you arrive in the Peach State, you will find plenty of room to thrive. Office space and vacant sites are abundant. And roads and bridges are in good shape in America’s most solid state,” said the report from CNBC.
Only two percent of our bridges are in poor condition, six percent of roads in unacceptable condition and broad access is now up to 93 percent – a critical piece of technology for modern business. Additionally, power does not get much more reliable than ours, with just 2.4 hours of outages per year.
The report also notes the obvious importance of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the first airport in the world to surpass 100 million in a year, topping out at a record 110 million in 2019. The pandemic put a big hit on air travel but the 94 million from last year easily qualified it as the world’s busiest.
The south in general is a real dichotomy, with six states in the top ten but Louisiana coming in at 49, Mississippi at 48 and Alabama at 42. Louisiana and Mississippi have both caught on to the idea of lowering costs for business, each ranking in the top ten, but Louisiana ranks no higher than 45 in any other category and Mississippi’s highest other ranking is 39. Finding that balance is a critical part of moving up in the rankings.
See the rankings for all the states and the endless data here:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/11/americas-top-states-for-business-2023-the-full-rankings.html
