Texas is No. 2 in the nation for business, according to CNBC’s annual Top States for Business rankings. The Lone Star State missed the No. 1 spot — claimed this year by North Carolina — by just 13 points.
Texas scored highest in the ranking for its robust workforce, landing at the top in the nation. And the state earned high marks for its economy, access to capital, and technology and innovation, coming in second in the nation in those categories. Texas also scored well, at No. 5, for its cost of doing business.
But the state lost out when it comes to quality of life, scoring second-to-last in the nation. As bad as that is, it’s actually a bump up from last year, when Texas’ quality of life ranked dead last.
Filling out the top 5 this year are Florida (No. 3), Virginia (No. 4) and Ohio (No. 5).
CNBC has been conducting the ranking for 19 years. The analysis looks at 10 categories of competitiveness across 135 metrics to assign a score, which is then ranked from highest to lowest.
It’s worth noting that, in the top five, all but one state — North Carolina — are led by Republican Governors. In the top 10, only three states are run by Democratic Governors.
At the bottom of this year’s rankings are Alaska (No. 50) and Hawaii (No. 49). Alaska’s bottom-of-the-barrel showing is largely due to its dependency on oil as its crude prices are down 12%, putting the state dead last in the economy category.
Hawaii, meanwhile, posted the nation’s highest cost of doing business and second-highest cost of living.
