{"id":9834,"date":"2014-07-09T06:00:45","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T13:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/?p=9834"},"modified":"2014-07-09T06:00:45","modified_gmt":"2014-07-09T13:00:45","slug":"starting-a-small-business-which-states-are-the-friendliest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/starting-a-small-business-which-states-are-the-friendliest\/","title":{"rendered":"Starting a Small Business?  Which States are the Friendliest?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Small businesses need all the help they can get these days. So if your company resides in one of the friendlies states for small business, you have something going for you. Thumbtack.com, in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, recently released the second-annual\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thumbtack.com\/survey\">Thumbtack.com Small Business Friendliness Survey<\/a>\u00a0showing that Utah, Alabama, New Hampshire, Idaho and Texas rated as the top-five friendliest states for small business.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In contrast, small business owners gave Hawaii, Maine and Rhode Island an \u201cF,\u201d while California and Illinois rounded out the bottom five, both earning a \u201cD\u201d grade. The top performing cities were Austin, Virginia Beach and Houston.<\/p>\n<p>Thumbtack.com surveyed 7,766 small businesses across the United States. The survey asked questions about the friendliness of states and cities toward small business, such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cHow would you rate your state&#8217;s support of small business owners?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWould you discourage or encourage someone from starting a new business where you live?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cDo you think you pay your fair share of taxes?\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is the only survey to obtain data from an extensive, nationwide universe of job creators and entrepreneurs in order to determine the most business-friendly locations. While there are various \u201cbusiness climate rankings\u201d that rate locations as good or bad for business, there are no others that draw upon considerable data from small business owners themselves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSmall businesses are top-of-mind for lawmakers nationwide, but too often their needs are more a matter of conjecture rather than actual evidence,\u201d says Sander Daniels, co-founder of Thumbtack.com. \u201cSome 7,000 businesses owners across the country have told us that they care about a lot more than just taxes\u00a0\u2013\u00a0for most businesses, simple licensing regulations and helpful training programs are even more important to their success.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some of the survey\u2019s key findings include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Texas\u00a0had three of the top five cities (Austin,\u00a0Houston\u00a0and\u00a0San Antonio),\u00a0while\u00a0California\u00a0was home to three of the bottom five (Los Angeles,\u00a0San Diego\u00a0and\u00a0Sacramento).\u00a0Newark, NJ\u00a0finished last in this year\u2019s rankings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Professional licensing requirements were 30 percent more important than taxes in determining a state\u2019s overall business-friendliness, confirming the findings from last year\u2019s study. Furthermore, this year\u2019s research revealed that 40 percent of U.S. small businesses are subject to licensing regulations by multiple jurisdictions or levels of government.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Small businesses were relatively unconcerned with tax rates\u00a0\u2013\u00a0more than half of small business owners felt they pay about the right share of taxes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>African-American and Hispanic small business owners were significantly more likely than their white counterparts to encourage others to start a new business.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>North Carolina\u00a0was the most improved state, making strides across multiple categories and rising from a \u201cC+\u2019\u201d to a \u201cB+\u201d grade overall.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The ease of obtaining health insurance was an important factor for many businesses. One-third of small business owners rated obtaining and keeping health insurance as \u201cVery Difficult,\u201d versus only 6 percent who rated it \u201cVery Easy.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thumbtack.com\/survey#2013\/states\">The full survey results<\/a> include full sets of rankings, dozens of easily searchable quotes from small businesses nationwide, regional comparisons within states, and Census data comparing states&#8217; and cities&#8217; key demographics against those of other states and cities.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Small businesses need all the help they can get these days. So if your company resides in one of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":9836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[304,341,210],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Starting a Small Business? Which States are the Friendliest? | QuestionPro<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Small businesses need all the help they can get these days. 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So if your company resides in one of the friendlies states for small business, you have\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/starting-a-small-business-which-states-are-the-friendliest\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"QuestionPro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/questionpro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-07-09T13:00:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/iStock_000004819641XSmall.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"485\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"247\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ivana Taylor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@questionpro\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@questionpro\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ivana Taylor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/starting-a-small-business-which-states-are-the-friendliest\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/starting-a-small-business-which-states-are-the-friendliest\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ivana Taylor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5a547e9ba0ad62a9ffa6f12466a7a244\"},\"headline\":\"Starting a Small Business? 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