Virginia drops to No. 12 on CNBC’s ‘Top States for Business’ ranking

Published June 24, 2015 by Veronica Garabelli

Virginia continues its fall from grace on CNBC’s ‘Top States for Business’ ranking, dropping to No. 12 on this year’s list.

In 2011, the commonwealth was named the top state for business by CNBC, but has continuously dropped in rank on the annual list since then. To compile the list, CNBC scores states in 10 categories, including infrastructure, economy and education. CNBC named Minnesota the No. 1 state for business this year.

“The Old Dominion is an old favorite of business, with friendly regulations. But job creation has slowed in recent years,” CNBC said about Virginia’s 2015 ranking on its website.

The commonwealth received high marks for its business friendliness, education and workforce, but poorer scores on infrastructure, economy, quality of life, and cost of living and doing business.

Virginia’s overall rank on the list for the past five years was as follows: 2014 (No. 8); 2013 (No. 5); 2012 (No. 3); 2011 (No.1) and 2010 (No.2).
States in the top five this year were: Texas (No.2); Utah (No.3); Colorado (No.4) and Georgia (No.5).