Hawai‘i ranks next to last for a business-friendly environment, according to the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council report released last week. California bottomed out at 50 and South Dakota topped the list as the most friendly to small business. “Most
Hawai‘i ranks next to last for a business-friendly environment, according to the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council report released last week.
California bottomed out at 50 and South Dakota topped the list as the most friendly to small business.
“Most elected officials talk about how much they love small business,” says Karen Kerrigan, SBEC president. “Some follow through in their actions, but others impose policies that are harmful to small business and entrepreneurship.”
The “Small Business Survival Index” for 2004 analyzes 23 major government-imposed or government-related costs affecting small businesses and entrepreneurs, including an assortment of taxes and measures that reflect various regulatory costs, and computes an overall rating. In essence, it is a comparative measure of economic incentives relating to government policies. Population growth has been much faster overall in states ranking in the top half on the Index, compared to those in the bottom half.
From 1995 to 2002, more than 2.5 million people moved from the 25 states and District of Columbia that rank in the bottom half to those 25 in the top half.
Job growth also was faster among the top 25 states. Finally, looking at average annual growth in personal income from 1993 to 2003, of the top ten fastest growing states, eight fell into the top half on the Survival Index, while of the ten slowest states, seven ranked in the bottom half of the Index. Here are the rankings: 1) South Dakota, 2) Nevada, 3) Wyoming, 4) Washington, 5) Florida, 6) Michigan, 7) Mississippi, 8) Alabama, 9) Colorado, 10) Indiana, 11) Texas, 12) Pennsylvania, 13) South Carolina, 14) New Hampshire, and 15) Virginia. In contrast, the most anti-entrepreneur policy environments are offered by the following: 37) North Carolina, 38) Montana, 39) Oregon, 40) Ohio, 41) Massachusetts, 42) Vermont, 43) Iowa, 44) New Jersey, 45) New York, 46) Maine, 47) Minnesota, 48) Rhode Island, 49) Hawaii, 50) California and 51) District of Columbia.
The entire report is available at www.sbecouncil.org.
