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Virginia ranked again as CNBC’s Top State for Business in the U.S. in 2021
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Scoring is based on 10 broad categories of competitiveness. States can earn a max of 2,500 points and the ones with the most are the Top States for Business in the U.S.
Virginia is the only state to have ranked first twice in a row. The state performed well in Education (Rank 2) and Workforce (Rank 3). However Virginia’s worst category is cost of living, which is higher than 31 other states in the U.S.
Among the Top 10 states for business in the U.S., 5 are from the South.
Although North Carolina falls short of No. 1, it still ranked better than Virginia in 7 categories. North Carolina was followed by Utah & Texas and all of the 3 states lost points in the area of Life, Health & Inclusion, keeping them out of reach from the top spot.
In total, 11 states have Life, Health & Inclusion as their worst category. Out of these 11, 10 states fall in the bottom 15 for Life, Health & Inclusion.
Although Vermont & Hawaii topped the Life, Health & Inclusion category, they are in the bottom 10 states overall and also in Access to Capital and Cost of Living.
5 states have Cost of living, the least weighted among all the categories, as their worst category and only 6 states have Cost of doing business, the highest weighted category, as their best category.
Oklahoma tops the Cost of doing business category, however it is the worst state for education in 2021, while Massachusetts and Virginia rank at 1 and 2 in education respectively.