Illinois is the 48th Best State for Business 2013

Previous State: Massachusetts Next State: New York

No. 48Illinois

Taxations & Regulations

Workforce Quality

Living Environment

Based on CEO Survey by ChiefExecutive.net

Key Metrics
State GDP 

  • % Growth ’10-’11: 1.3
  • % Growth ’10-’11 v. Nat’l Avg. (1.5%): -0.2

Unemployment

  • Unemployment Rate Dec. 2012 %: 8.6
  • Comparison with Nat’l Rate (7.80%): 0.8

Domestic Migration

  • Domestic Net Migration ’10-’11: -79,458
  • Rank: 50

State Government

  • Debt per Capita Fiscal Year ’10 ($): 4,790
  • State & Local Gov’t Employees per 10k Residents: 503.1

State-Local Tax Burden

  • Rate (%): 9.7
  • Compared to Nat’l Avg. (9.9%): -0.15
Key Companies
  • Abbott Laboratories
  • McDonald’s Corporation
  • Allstate Corporation
  • Walgreens
  • Archer-Daniels-Midland
  • Deere & Co.
Development Trend Indicator: Negative
Keeps adding to toxic environment with new effort to boost minimum wage.
CEO Comments
“Illinois’ income tax increase is chasing businesses and employees out of the state.”

“Illinois—a complete and utter disaster when it comes to fiscal management. The inability to address key issues that are driving debt and instead increase the tax burden on businesses AND residents is mind-boggling. This is precisely why I intend to move my company to FL or TN.”

“Unfunded future pension and healthcare liabilities are future taxes that are at this point unknown. Business does not like unpredictable factors that are this critical to long term ongoing investments and operations in any state! Illinois, California, Connecticut and many others have this issue.”

“People have started an exodus out of Illinois physically and financially.”

“Financial considerations are the dominating issue today. California and Illinois have incompetent politicians and inimical outlooks for business.”

“Illinois workers comp system is corrupt. Once a claim is made, you can never end it. A business cannot overcome a fraudulent claim.”

“Illinois is bankrupted and not interested in fixing it except raising taxes on business.”

“Illinois is a joke when dealing with the financial and healthcare issues. It has the lowest credit rating of all states and it is virtually bankrupt. The State owes healthcare providers & other vendors about $8B.”

“California, Illinois & NY are simply awful states to operate facilities or employ people. The state governments are bankrupt from years of out-of-control spending, budget mismanagement, general corruption (or too much public/private union influence) and the business regulations are worse than almost any other state. For example, California Prop 65 has turned into civil litigators’ bonanza (state sponsored program) to legal ‘extort’ money from mostly out of state companies. We will do almost anything possible to minimize our exposure to these anti-business environments.”

“Living in Illinois… this state is too “corrupt”.

“NY, CA, & IL make it hard to desire to do business there due to deeply-rooted and ineffective socialist bureaucrats who get in the way with their secular social engineering and inherent distrust of business. They represent ‘ankle weights’ to focused business people trying to serve others with value, quality, and responsiveness. High taxes, legal ‘lottery’ justice, and costly union-first commercial complications make you desire to see the consuming public relocate away from these ‘upside-down’ population centers in spite of their historical importance.”

“Illinois has failed leadership and is driving business away.”

“Illinois is headed for bankruptcy if severe changes are not made in Springfield.”

“California, New York and Illinois have high costs of living, high taxes and high regulation. Additionally, changes are making each place worse to do business in those states.”

“Illinois appears to be degrading faster than the others although it is followed closely by Connecticut.”

“Illinois and California regulations, work comp laws, taxes make doing work there expensive and difficult.”

“California, NY and Illinois are all the same they have no clue that someone has to pay the bills and that the taxpayer is going to not take much longer. Even though they have the highest tax rates they have the worst services—go figure.”

Sources:
Bureau of Economic Analysis
Bureau of Labor Statistics
NewGeography.com
The Tax Foundation

Previous State: #47 Massachusetts Next State: #49 New York


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