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WASHINGTON - Contractors with the entrepreneurial spirit should head for the western U.S., as the top four most entrepreneur-friendly states are, in order, Nevada, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming, according to the Small Business Survival Committee’s (SBSC) Small Business Survival Index 2001 (listed at right in order of best score). SBSC’s sixth annual index ranks states according to their respective policy climates for small business and entrepreneurship.
"The Small Business Survival Index 2001 offers a gauge by which to measure and compare how government in the states treat small businesses and entrepreneurs," said Raymond Keating, SBSC chief economist and author of the study. "Since small business serves as the backbone of the U.S. economy - for example, by providing the bulk of new jobs and majority of innovations - every state and local lawmaker should be concerned with the well-being of small business."
"In an increasingly mobile and competitive national economy, differences in government-imposed costs of doing business can make a huge difference between whether a state grows economically or falls behind," stated SBSC President Darrell McKigney. "The purpose of the ‘Small Business Survival Index 2001’ is to let citizens and lawmakers know how they stack up with the rest of the country in terms of being friendly to small businesses and economic growth."
SBSC’s index ties together 17 major government-imposed or government-related costs impacting small businesses and entrepreneurs across a broad spectrum of industries and types of businesses, including the following:
- Personal income taxes;
- Capital gains taxes;
- Corporate income taxes;
- Property taxes;
- Sales taxes;
- Death taxes;
- Unemployment taxes;
- Health insurance taxes;
- Electricity costs;
- Workers’ compensation costs;
- Crime rates;
- Right to work status;
- Number of bureaucrats;
- Tax limitation status;
- Internet taxes;
- Gas taxes; and
- State minimum wages.
The above measures are combined into one index number: the Small Business Survival Index.
"The Small Business Survival Index manages to capture much of the governmental burdens impacting critical economic decisions - particularly affecting investment and entrepreneurship - state by state," noted Keating. "The best policy environment for entrepreneurship consists of low taxes, limited government, restrained regulation and government protecting life, limb and property. States following such a governing philosophy will reap great rewards from America’s entrepreneurs, including faster economic growth and increased job creation."
For a copy of the Small Business Survival Index 2001, visit SBSC’s Web site at www.sbsc.org/Media/pdf/SBSI2001.pdf. SBSC is a national nonpartisan, nonprofit small business advocacy group headquartered in Washington, D.C. [NOTE: You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the index.]