products  company  all

Business

Report Card: Indiana ‘A’, New Mexico ‘F’

By Mike Botta

Only five states received “A” grades for manufacturing and health while four others were slapped with “F’s” in a new report card released this month by Ball State University.

Meanwhile, 10 states received “B” grades in the category, 20 got “C’s,” and 11 were graded no higher than “D.”

The high scorers were Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan and Ohio while the flunkies included Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and New Mexico. 

In addition to manufacturing health, the 2011 Manufacturing and Logistics National Report graded the 50 states on logistics, human capital, the cost of benefits, the global reach and diversification of the industries, state-level productivity and innovation, the tax climate, and venture capital activities.

Indiana Leads

The report, issued by Indiana-based Ball State in conjunction with Conexus Indiana, a private sector-led initiative focused on “making Indiana a global manufacturing and logistics leader,” places the home state in the lead category as the only one to receive four “A” grades across the categories.

New Mexico ended up on the bottom of the manufacturing barrel, managing to pick up four “F’s” – more than industrial powerhouses (wink, wink) Hawaii and Alaska.

Not surprisingly, the high-tax states of New York and New Jersey were among the five flunking for tax climate while California and Texas were among the five, including New Mexico, that received “A” grades for productivity and innovation.

Wake Up Call

Despite what 49 other states might see as a rah-rah Indiana spin, Ball State’s award-winning Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) was behind the study and clearly outlined the methodology used in determining the grades.

A useful interactive map is located at http://cber.iweb.bsu.edu/research/conexus11/ … The full report is available at http://cber.iweb.bsu.edu/research/conexus11/NationalReport11.pdf.

 

ADD A COMMENT

Name:
Email Address:
Home Page:
Comment:
 Click to reload image
Captcha:
 

Comments

view allRelated Blogs

Join us in Facebook!
Facebook