North Carolina Soars to #3 on CNBC’s “Top States for Business 2019” List

by Amanda Harrison, on 7/10/19 12:24 PM

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After a long wait, the time has finally come for CNBC to announce their “Top States for Business in 2019.” Last year, North Carolina took 9th place- a respectable number that had us all feeling pretty good about our state. This year, we managed to climb an impressive 6 spots.

Look out Virginia and Texas! We’re coming for you next year!

In order to complete their list, CNBC compiled data from all 50 states and graded them based on 60 measures of competitiveness in 10 larger categories. What’s really interesting about this list, is that each category is weighted according to how the states market themselves.

For example:

If North Carolina tried to woo businesses by claiming the quality of life and cost of living is unparalleled, those two categories would have had a bigger impact on the overall score. (And we would have fallen lower on the list.)

But since we attract companies by touting our bustling economy and workforce, our score improved and we were able to soar above the competition.

Which only goes to show that honesty really is the best policy. Even in economic development. 

The top 10 states this year were:

  1. Virginia
  2. Texas
  3. North Carolina
  4. Utah
  5. Washington
  6. Georgia
  7. Minnesota
  8. Nebraska
  9. Colorado
  10. Ohio

North Carolina received the sort of report card that would have had my parents conflicted in their feelings. While the majority of scores were either an A or a B, we did score a D in the Quality of Life category. Placing 3rd is a great achievement, but if we want to beat out Texas and Virginia next year, there is definite room for improvement.

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Check out the complete list here.

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Topics:North CarolinaSmall BusinessRankingsEconomic DevelopmentQuality of LifeVirginia

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