Utah is the No. 1 state in the country for entrepreneurs for 2020, according to a new study from Seek Capital study and reported by Forbes.
“When it comes to business, not all states are created equal, and for entrepreneurs just starting out, it matters more than you may realize,” the study reports. “The best state to start a business ideally needs to have the economic, financial and social conditions that are conducive to entrepreneurial success.”
The ranking comes after a study of all states to determine which were the best for starting a new company. The study looked at 21 factors, including growth in the working-age population, employment statistics, business tax climate, venture capital deal flow, economic statistics such as GDP growth, cost of living, and business survival rates. Startup activity, sourced from the Kauffman Indicators of Entrepreneurship, was weighted heavily in the study.
“As the No. 1 best state to start a business, Utah has top marks across several categories in the study,” the study reports. “From 2013 to 2018, Utah’s working-age population grew by 9 percent, from a little over 1.8 million to now closing in on 2 million.”
Here are all the top 10 states:
- Utah
- Florida
- Texas
- Colorado
- California
- North Carolina
- Idaho
- Oklahoma
- Georgia
- Wyoming
Here are the worst 10 states (from bad to less bad):
- Rhode Island
- Connecticut
- New Jersey
- Maine
- Alabama
- Maryland
- New Hampshire
- Arkansas
- Louisiana
- Pennsylvania
“Rhode Island ranks as the worst state to start a business, with good reason,” the study concludes. “Its rate of new entrepreneurs, defined by the Kauffman Indicators of Entrepreneurship as the percentage of the population that starts a new business, is the lowest in the study at just 0.12 percent.”
Find the full study here: seekcapital.com/blog/best-states-to-start-business.
