Delaware ranks No. 2 in the 2014 State New Economy Index.
The index measures how states and regions are performing in the current environment, while offering policy reforms which can spur innovation-based economic growth, according to the Technology and Innovation Foundation.
The high ranking is good news for a Delaware economy that has been battered by the loss of both its automobile manufacturing plants and a lack of overall growth in manufacturing.
The report accompanying the ranking offers policy reforms which can spur innovation-based economic growth. The index, produced by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), ranks states on a series of measures that analyze the economic environment for success in the 21st century.
The index uses 25 indicators in five categories to assess states’ fundamental capacity to transform their economies and incubate innovation. The categories are: knowledge jobs, globalization, economic dynamism, the digital economy and innovation capacity. The 2014 index builds on six earlier indices, published in 1999, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012.
The top five states are Massachusetts, Delaware, California, Washington and Maryland. The lowest scoring states in the ranking are Mississippi, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.
“States have traditionally sought to spur economic development by keeping costs low and providing incentive packages to individual firms to lure them to their borders,” says Rob Atkinson, president of ITIF and co-author of the index. “However, in the global, innovation-based economy, states would be better off keeping quality high and working to support in-state entrepreneurship and existing firm expansion.”
Because Delaware is a small state, it sometimes struggles to compete with those incentives, but does offer a Strategic Fund aimed at attracting higher paid positions to the state.
“Through The State New Economy Index we seek to highlight the states that have made the most progress in embracing the New Economy, as well as the policies that can be used to accomplish this goal,” adds Atkinson. “We hope this will serve as a roadmap states and the nation as a whole can use to support innovation-based growth.
“This ranking is a great indication that many of the things we have been working on in Delaware are coming to fruition,” said Alan Levin, director of the Delaware Economic Development Office. “Our efforts to continually train an already highly qualified workforce in the latest skills, the elimination of unnecessary regulations through continual agency review, the ability to access decision makers to get things done, and a reemphasis on the small business startup sector through innovative programs, all serve to make Delaware the great place for business that it is.”
Not everyone shares that view. “When I ask other employers and entrepreneurs to identify the item most responsible for holding them back from expanding and creating jobs, by far the answer I hear the most is regulations – cumbersome, time-consuming, expensive, job-killing regulations,” State Sen. Gerald Hocker, R-Ocean View wrote in a recent column. View the report here.
