CNBC Ranks Minnesota as America’s Top State for Business in 2015

CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, today unveiled the results of its ninth annual list of America’s Top States for Business with Minnesota taking top honors.

The new champion scored 1,584 out of 2,500 points.

CNBC Special Correspondent Scott Cohn reported today live from Minneapolis and counted down the top five states throughout CNBC’s Business Day programming and on CNBC Digital.

Coverage of America’s Top States for Business will continue on-air and online through Thursday, June 25th.

The North Star state, which finished in sixth place last year, took home the gold this year with Education as its best category followed by Quality of Life.

However, the land of 10,000 lakes ranked 35th in Cost of Doing Business – the state’s top individual income tax rate is one of the highest in the nation at 9.85%.

Even so, Minnesota’s economy is among the healthiest in the nation with unemployment well below the national average.

“Minnesota shows that there are multiple paths states can follow to be competitive,” Cohn said. “The state took a gamble by raising taxes in 2013, and at least so far it has paid off in improved state finances, and the fact that businesses were willing to stay put in order to take advantage of the state’s excellent workforce, top-notch education system, and superb quality of life.”

CNBC Digital offers a detailed analysis of how Minnesota claimed the top spot including a complete economic snapshot (employment, budget, tax and housing data).

The rankings for all 50 states are available at topstates.cnbc.com.

In addition, the site also has exclusive stories and slideshows including the best and worst states to live in, the least and most expensive states, and the new battle over which states have the best workforce, among others..

To determine the rankings for America’s Top States for Business, each state was scored—using publicly available data—on more than 60 different measures of competitiveness.

We developed our methodology with input from a broad and diverse array of business and policy experts, official government sources, the CNBC Global CFO Council and the states themselves.

States received points based on their rankings in each metric, which were then separated into ten broad categories.

The categories are weighted based on how frequently each is used as a selling point in state economic development marketing materials.

That way, the states were graded on the criteria they use to sell themselves.

America’s Top 5 States for Business:

1. Minnesota (Highest Rank – #2 in Education; Lowest Rank – #35 in Cost of Doing Business)
2. Texas (Highest Rank – #1 in Infrastructure; Lowest Rank – #33 in Quality of Life)
3. Utah (Highest Rank – #1 in Economy; Lowest Rank – #31 in Education)
4. Colorado (Highest Rank – #3 in Economy; Lowest Rank – #36 in Cost of Doing Business)
5. Georgia (Highest Rank – #2 in Infrastructure; Lowest Rank – #36 in Quality of Life)