Chief executives recently ranked Texas the best state in the U.S. for business, according to Chief Executive magazine’s 2019 “Best and Worst States for Business” survey.
CEOs put Texas, which was No. 1 last year as well, in the top slot, followed by Florida, Tennessee (up three slots since last year), North Carolina and Indiana.
“Texas encourages business and gets out of the way,” said one CEO who does business there, echoing sentiments from many of his peers. “They also have a low tax rate and lots of great people to hire. It is far easier to get tech people here than in California because they want to move here.”
California ranked last in the survey, followed by New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut. All five drew low marks from CEOs for taxes and regulation. California, in particular, was singled out by many of those polled thanks to the state’s perceived hostility to business.
Compared with 2018, Idaho made the largest improvement in the CEO survey, rising nine spots to number 19, while Kansas, reckoning with a painful political environment and, as one CEO put it, a “degraded education system,” dropped 10 slots.
The survey is among the most important barometers in the world of economic development nationally because it is based solely on the opinions of CEOs, said Dennis Cuneo, and veteran economic-development consultant and former Toyota executive who led the company’s site selection efforts.
