Cross-posted at CalWatchdog.
California may have beautiful weather and incredibly interesting, diverse climates, but trying to run a business in this state is another matter. “Climate” is a matter of perspective.
A new business survey of the best and worst states for business has been published by Development Counselors International. Surprising no one, the survey reveals that California was most frequently named by business leaders as the worst state in the country to start or operate a business.
Having the least favorable business climate, California was the state named most frequently by respondents as business-unfriendly. This is the fourth consecutive time that California has received “least favorable business climate” top billing since the company first started doing the survey.
Respondents provided understandable reasons for their negative opinions of California. The state was cited for having very high taxes by 40 percent of respondents, while 36 percent mention too much regulation, 23 percent said that California has high business costs, and 17 percent identified the anti-business climate.
Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Florida were the top favorable business climate vote getters for the 2011 survey. Reasons cited were a more favorable tax climate, having a pro-business climate, being a right-to-work-state, having a strong and talented workforce, and economic development support. Interestingly, four of the five pro-business states are in the Southeast.
“Since DCI began conducting this survey in 1996, the states in the top five have been relatively stable. Texas has held the #1 spot since 1999, while North Carolina has held the #2 spot since 2002. Florida, Georgia and Tennessee have frequently traded top positions in the survey,” the summary reported.
DCI, an economic development and tourism firm, states that it has conducted this survey since 1996. The 2011 results are based on the responses of 322 business participants, with the annual “Rating of the States” the most popular portion of the survey.
Read the survey here – for the business climate results, jump to page 22.