Top States For Business 2022: How Competitive Is Florida?

FLORIDA — An economy relatively free of COVID-19 restrictions during the pandemic and a plentiful workforce helped propel Florida to No. 11 in America’s Top States for Business in 2022, the business and financial news network CNBC’s annual competitiveness ranking.

Last year, Florida ranked 17th in the competitiveness rankings, weighted according to the frequency states use attributes such as the strength of the workforce, the state of infrastructure development and the cost of doing business as selling points in their economic development materials, CNBC said.

In all, CNBC measured how well the states performed across 88 metrics in 10 categories. For the first time, child-care resources and support for emerging industries such as cryptocurrency and cannabis were included in the competitiveness rankings. States can earn a total of 2,500 points.

Florida accumulated 1,430 points:

• Workforce: 274 points, A- letter grade
• Infrastructure: 221 points, B letter grade
• Cost of doing business: 181 points, B letter grade
• Economy: 267 points, A letter grade
• Life, health and inclusion: 111 points, F letter grade
• Technology and innovation: 148 points, B- letter grade
• Business friendliness: 79 points, D- letter grade
• Education: 99 points, B letter grade
• Access to capital: 26 points, C- letter grade
• Cost of living: 24 points, C letter grade

North Carolina topped the ranking, moving up from No. 2 last year. CNBC noted that’s partly because “political leaders in the Tar Heel State keep managing to put partisanship aside to build the nation’s strongest economy.”

Rounding out the top five were Washington, Virginia, Colorado and Texas.

To determine how well the states performed, CNBC relied on publicly available federal data, but also commissioned reports from real estate and labor market data collection firms. State economic development and financial data from each state were also used. For more, read the full methodology.