Which States Are Growing More Competitive?

In many ways, individual U.S. states are like 50 laboratories where differing public policy, industry focus, and economic development strategies are tried and tested. Different approaches yield different results and some states become more competitive – gaining a larger share of total job creation — while others struggle and lose share. This phenomenon has been evident over the past few years as our nation struggles to recover. Some states have been doing quite well while others are still limping along.

In this post we have produced a side-by-side analysis of every state to show how they stack up against each other. The goal is to see which states are becoming more competitive (that is, gaining a larger share of the total job creation), and which are losing their share of the jobs being created. The table and graphic each rank the states based on the overall competitive effect and what percentage of jobs (from 2007-2011) are based on competitive effects.

By Hank Robison and Rob Sentz

Full Story: http://www.newgeography.com/content/002558-which-states-are-growing-more-competitive