Delaware slips from second to 27th in Thumbtack small business survey

290
Advertisement

Delaware saw its No. 2 ranking head south in  the Thumbtack  2018 small  business survey

 Small business owners surveyed by Thumbtack,  gave Delaware a B- this year, ranking 27th in a survey of business friendliness in all 50 states. Thumbtack is a website and app that finds local professionals.

That’s 25 spots lower than last year when the state ranked second and received an A+.  Delaware scored higher than New Jersey (D+), but lower than Maryland (B+).

State leaders had been taking note of the positive  2017 findings from Thumbtack as surveys from CNBC and others gave Delaware low business rankings.

“The biggest slip this year for Delaware was in its training and networking programs. In 2017, it received an A grade, with 27 pecent  of our respondents saying that they or their business had benefited from a training or networking program,”  Thumbtack economist Lucas Puente, stated in an Email message. “However, this year, only 10 percent of the small business owners we heard from had used such a program. This drop in usage led the state to get an F for its training and networking programs this year.”
 
Another noticeable decline came in tax regulations  Puente noted  Last year, 45 percent said that tax-based regulations were friendly towards small businesses; this year, only 34 percent. did. 
 

 Its  2018 Small Business Friendliness Survey, ranked all 50 states and 57 cities based on factors that included licensing requirements, tax regulations, and labor and hiring regulations. With over 7,500 small business owners surveyed, it’s the largest continuous study of small business perceptions of local government policy in the U.S, according to a release.

Advertisement

Based on the evaluations in surveys,  Thumbtack also assigned eight policy-specific grades to evaluate how easy local governments make it to start, operate, and grow a small business. For more details about the report and the full set of results for Delaware, please visit Thumbtack.com/DE.

Advertisement
Advertisement