North Carolina's Entrepreneurship Ranking

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North Carolina's Entrepreneurship Ranking

Special Report - December 31, 2009
A December report released by the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council) ranked North Carolina’s policy environment for entrepreneurship as 39th in the nation. North Carolina received the lowest ranking of any southern state and was listed among the “most anti-entrepreneur policy environments.” The 14th annual “Small Business Survival Index 2009: Ranking the Policy Environment for Entrepreneurship Across the Nation” looked at “36 major government-imposed or government-related costs impacting small businesses and entrepreneurs” in order to determine “which states are truly friendly to small business, and which are not in terms of public policy decisions.”

North Carolina did rank above average in state and local property taxes (12th), five-year government spending trends (13th), and per capita state and local government expenditures (12th). However, North Carolina’s personal income and capital gains tax rates ranked 43rd and 44th, respectively, at a 7.983 tax rate for each. Nine states do not levy a state personal income tax. The highest income tax rates are levied at 11 percent by Hawaii and Ohio. A crime rate of 4.51 per 100 residents placed North Carolina 44th in the nation. A 3.2 percent adjusted unemployment tax ranked North Carolina 39th, compared to California’s best rate of 0.8. Six government employees per 100 residents landed North Carolina at 38th, much higher than Nevada’s low 4.32 rate. In most other areas like corporate income and capital gains taxes, health care regulation factors, internet, gas, and diesel taxes, state minimum wage, and highway cost efficiency, North Carolina ranked near the middle of the pack.

“Policy matters,” according to study author Raymond Keating, chief economist for the SBE Council. The report’s finding that “the population in the top 25 states on the Index grew at an 84 percent faster pace than the bottom 26 on the Index” supports Keating’s assertion that “These measures should matter to everyone because small businesses, of course, drive innovation, economic growth and job creation. If we want to get our economy back on a solid robust growth track, then we need pro-entrepreneur policies at the federal, state and local levels.”