CALIFORNIA: California and Rhode Island earned a survey of small business owners rating state and local governments’ friendliness to small business. At the other end of the spectrum, also for the fourth year in a row, Texas and Utah earned an A+ from entrepreneurs.
What matters to small business owners. Nearly 18,000 entrepreneurs surveyed by Thumbtack.com said, Chamber of Commerce style training and networking regulatory and licensing simplicity, helpful government websites to cut red tape, and taxes.In addition to Texas and Utah, small business owners rated New Hampshire, Louisiana, and Colorado as the best places for business.
Aside from California and Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Illinois received “F” grades, closely followed by Massachusetts, Maryland, and New York with “D” grades.Thumbtack.com, a service firm that links consumers to businesses, has a vast network of business owners across the nation and surveys them regularly.
They are rightly concerned with a decline in American entrepreneurship, citing a multiyear drop in business starts as part of a broad collapse of self-employment across industries and states.
