Virginia Named Top State for Business 2019

Virginia has been chosen as America’s Top State for Business this year by CNBC, beating out Texas—last year’s top state.[1]

Chris Chmura, CEO and Chief Economist here at Chmura Economics & Analytics, was interviewed about the decision. The following video features excerpts from that interview. A transcript is provided below.

Chris: “The CNBC’s top state for business this year is Virginia. Virginia has not been ranked number one since 2011. And we fell all the way back to thirteen and twelve in 2016 and 2015, mainly because, I think, of all the defense cuts that we were seeing. Our state is very dependent on defense.

“So, being ranked number one is great publicity for the state. Businesses that are expanding look at these ranking systems, because you want to expand into a region where the economy is growing, where you know that you’re gonna have the population and the workforce when you move to that region. You want to move into an area that is good in terms of business friendliness, so that there’s not a lot of red tape and difficulties, or high taxes when you’re moving into that region. So this is a nice high-level, 'is this a good state to move to?'

“And the main reason for us moving up was the economy was improved, and also workforce is the area where we received most of our points, in terms of the training that’s provided by the state and the programs they have. And then another one where we ranked very highly in, and we always do, is education, of course because of UVA, Virginia Tech, VCU, and all the great schools we have in the state.”

[1] Full list here: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/10/americas-top-states-for-business-2019.html