Forbes “Best States for Business”
Forbes magazine released today their second annual “Best States for Business” rankings. Unfortunately, Maine does miserably coming in as the 48th worst state for business–just ahead of Louisiana and West Virginia. To add insult to injury, Maine actually fell two spots from the 2006 ranking where we ranked 46th.
New Hampshire leads New England coming it at the 14th spot, up from 18th the year before. Connecticut comes in at 31, Vermont at 32 and Massachusetts at 36.
The great aspect about this index is that it examines 32 criteria in order to make these determinations–clustered into 6 categories. Here is how Maine does in each: Business Costs (43), Labor (27), Regulatory Environment (46), Economic Climate (30), Growth Prospects (42) and Quality of Life (16). We fare poorly pretty much across the board.