2024 ‘America’s Top States for Business’ rankings to be unveiled in July

It's that time of year again. Since 2007, CNBC has been ranking all 50 states for competitiveness. Our 2024 America's Top States for Business Report is just one month away, believe it or not. And there are some important changes this year and how we tally these things. Scott Cohen puts the study together for us every year he's here with a preview. And Scott, every year you, you mix things up a little bit. Yeah, well, the world mixes things up a little bit. And there are some kind of clues, subtle clues within the changes here. So I know that you'd like to try and guess. So just listen to all of this carefully. First, a reminder of what hasn't changed in the 17 years since we started this. We rate the states on dozens of metrics, 128 metrics this year in 10 categories of competitiveness. Those categories are pretty much the same from year to year, but the weight that they carry changes based on how important they are in the site selection process. What the states are pitching when they court companies for a long time was all about the cost of doing business like taxes and incentives. More recently it was which state has the best workforce in 2024, For the first time ever, there is a different category on top. Take a look. OK, here we go. With federal money flooding the States and the very nature of work in flux, it stands to reason that infrastructure is front and center in this year's top state study. We need to make sure that the condition of our infrastructure is not a limiting factor on growth. We look at which states are offering shovel ready sites for development. Where is the most reliable power grid and the least risk from climate disasters? Where can you find the best access to your customers, connecting both virtually and for real? This year, infrastructure is worth 17 percent of a state score. That's followed by workforce. Which states are meeting the need for skilled employees? Which states have the best economy? Where's the top quality of life? We look at the cost of doing business, technology and innovation, including which states are leading the way in artificial intelligence? The state that's actually investing and allowing for people to go either into industry or into government to be able to help make a difference is the state that I think is going to succeed. We measure business friendliness. We grade education, access to capital and the cost of living. Yeah, with prices still stubbornly high, we are taking a deep dive into cost of living this year, including housing affordability and the cost of insurance, which is skyriding, skyrocketing in some states more than others. Also this year, foreign direct investment states are talking about that in a way that I haven't seen before. We'll look at which states the world is betting on in that, in that aspect. As always, you can read about our study and all our reporting in the weeks ahead at topstates.cnbc.com. And we will reveal the top state for business right here on Squawk BOX on July July 11th. Oh good. I'm. Oh wait, I'm not here that day. OK, I'm gonna have to guess ahead of time. I just realized leading up to that. OK, I I love the guesswork on this So let's start this now. I actually before we do one question just about access to energy. That seems to me that it's just something that is a much bigger deal. We've been talking about it with AI, this idea that you're going to need more energy than we thought we were a few years from now. And there are questions about whether the electricity grid can keep up with any of those things. We've been talking a lot lately about permitting and regulations and how you get access to that. Because in order to have the companies that will come and build things like the the data centers that suck up so much of that energy, you're also going to need to see how that takes away energy that would have been for consumers and how it raises prices if you don't get more things built quickly. Yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right. It's a big deal. We we look at that really closely in that infrastructure category, but also in in business friendliness, the permitting business. We've got some some new data on that this year. But what we're hearing from site selectors is that companies want shovel ready sites and that includes a good reliable power grid and renewables and all those things are things that that we that we're looking at this year. We're working with, there's a group called the Site Selectors Guild, which is sort of the trade group for site selection consultants, the whole cottage industry around this. And they're supplying some of the data for us this year about what what different states are doing. And this varies a lot among the states in terms of site readiness. Where are the shovel ready sites where some states have programs where you can help help you cut through the red tape in terms of permitting? And companies really want that because it's, it's now it's brick and mortar. We want to build plants, we want to get that government money, whether it's the chips act, the Inflation Reduction Act or whatever. And, and, and so it's, it's really different this year. You've been talking so for so many years about workforce, which is still important, but but things really when we started to look at what the states are talking about, we start this process back in, in February. It's really, really changed in a way that I haven't seen in in a while. We we had a guest in the last week, I can't remember if it was earlier this week or late last week, who was from a power company out West who had spent 18 years trying to get permitting done to build transmission lines from renewable energy sources to bring more electricity. And they just got shut down again by the federal government. Yeah, 18 years and running. That's insane. Yeah, it does it and that and that's just not flying anymore. I mean, it's, it's everything is moving so fast that that's a big deal. And we've always done business friendliness as a category. It's, it's up in importance this year. And now we're able to look at, you know, what, how does, what does it take to get a, a permit? What is it? How do the land use regulations work in a way that's friendly to business? But but also, I'm going to be playing along from afar even though I'm not here on July 11th, I will be tweeting in my guesses as I'm watching what you're doing. I'll, I'll, I always enjoy your guesses. OK, Scott, thank you. We'll see you again later. OK, You bet.