The Milken Institute recently released its 2005 Cost-of-Doing-Business Index (available online as a 43KB PDF document), which provides a frame of reference for finding out the relative costs of different basic components of business expenses throughout the United States. (HT: Division of Labour.)
Now, the Milken Institute's table is a nice, static display of the relative costs of doing business in the United States, at least as compared to the U.S. national average in each of it's categories. But is that good enough in this day and age? Political Calculations(TM) believes that data in tables presented online should dance on command, rearranging itself to show the relative rankings of each state for each category listed! We also think that indices built on cost data should include the raw cost information, in case the reader might want to crunch some cost numbers of their own.
That's why Political Calculations has mined the data behind the Milken Institute's 2005 Cost-of-Doing-Business Index (available as a 33KB PDF document) to provide the following dynamic table, in which you may click any of the column headings to rearrange the data in the table according to its ranking within that category (details about each of the categories is provided below the table):
| 2005 U.S. Cost of Doing Business Index |
|---|
| State | Wage per Employee | Tax Burden | Electricity (cents/kWh) | Industrial Sq. Ft. Cost ($) | Office Sq. Ft. Cost ($) | Overall Index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska | 37851 | 57.0 | 9.18 | 12.7 | 15.0 | 101.9 |
| Alabama | 31561 | 55.7 | 5.42 | 4.0 | 18.2 | 85.0 |
| Arkansas | 28335 | 78.8 | 4.79 | 3.0 | 16.1 | 76.3 |
| Arizona | 34738 | 58.8 | 6.23 | 4.1 | 20.1 | 93.5 |
| California | 41811 | 68.2 | 11.02 | 6.6 | 25.9 | 112.5 |
| Colorado | 38378 | 42.5 | 5.85 | 4.3 | 18.1 | 103.3 |
| Connecticut | 47262 | 64.7 | 8.96 | 5.6 | 22.7 | 127.2 |
| Delaware | 40044 | 79.8 | 6.23 | 4.8 | 21.1 | 107.8 |
| Florida | 33221 | 56.2 | 6.27 | 5.8 | 21.7 | 89.4 |
| Georgia | 36160 | 54.9 | 5.34 | 3.7 | 19.7 | 97.3 |
| Hawaii | 34135 | 94.8 | 13.61 | 13.8 | 24.8 | 91.9 |
| Iowa | 29922 | 56.9 | 5.20 | 2.8 | 14.4 | 80.5 |
| Idaho | 28243 | 70.1 | 4.86 | 3.7 | 14.0 | 76.0 |
| Illinois | 39925 | 58.4 | 6.07 | 5.0 | 25.5 | 107.5 |
| Indiana | 32735 | 63.7 | 5.02 | 3.9 | 17.1 | 88.1 |
| Kansas | 31028 | 62.7 | 5.52 | 4.4 | 18.6 | 83.5 |
| Kentucky | 31382 | 73.7 | 4.29 | 3.3 | 16.1 | 84.5 |
| Louisiana | 30219 | 64.4 | 6.49 | 3.9 | 16.9 | 81.4 |
| Massachusetts | 45179 | 62.3 | 9.80 | 6.7 | 30.7 | 121.6 |
| Maryland | 40110 | 56.5 | 5.92 | 4.8 | 22.0 | 107.9 |
| Maine | 30267 | 71.9 | 8.35 | 4.0 | 16.8 | 81.5 |
| Michigan | 38664 | 74.5 | 6.26 | 5.1 | 18.6 | 104.1 |
| Minnesota | 37797 | 80.6 | 5.24 | 6.4 | 20.9 | 101.8 |
| Missouri | 33284 | 51.8 | 5.14 | 4.1 | 18.7 | 89.6 |
| Mississippi | 27078 | 71.6 | 5.87 | 3.5 | 13.9 | 72.9 |
| Montana | 26830 | 65.3 | 5.55 | 3.4 | 13.3 | 72.2 |
| North Carolina | 33180 | 66.4 | 5.72 | 3.7 | 17.6 | 89.3 |
| North Dakota | 27370 | 61.7 | 4.80 | 2.7 | 12.5 | 73.7 |
| Nebraska | 30456 | 66.5 | 4.99 | 3.6 | 19.0 | 82.0 |
| New Hampshire | 36519 | 41.7 | 9.91 | 6.0 | 15.4 | 98.3 |
| New Jersey | 45545 | 58.4 | 8.36 | 7.3 | 23.4 | 122.6 |
| New Mexico | 30467 | 80.3 | 6.15 | 5.0 | 15.3 | 82.0 |
| Nevada | 35852 | 60.8 | 8.04 | 5.2 | 25.0 | 96.5 |
| New York | 46577 | 62.4 | 10.03 | 7.5 | 34.7 | 125.4 |
| Ohio | 34476 | 62.6 | 6.19 | 3.7 | 18.0 | 92.8 |
| Oklahoma | 29414 | 64.9 | 5.49 | 3.7 | 14.7 | 79.2 |
| Oregon | 33844 | 56.7 | 5.51 | 5.1 | 20.5 | 91.1 |
| Pennsylvania | 36157 | 61.3 | 7.10 | 4.7 | 21.2 | 97.3 |
| Rhode Island | 35555 | 66.1 | 9.53 | 3.3 | 19.4 | 95.7 |
| South Carolina | 30325 | 59.6 | 5.40 | 3.2 | 18.7 | 81.6 |
| South Dakota | 26877 | 44.7 | 5.27 | 2.6 | 13.8 | 72.3 |
| Tennessee | 32868 | 53.9 | 5.48 | 3.5 | 17.4 | 88.5 |
| Texas | 36421 | 45.2 | 6.56 | 4.5 | 18.2 | 98.0 |
| Utah | 30829 | 65.9 | 4.69 | 3.9 | 19.2 | 83.0 |
| Virginia | 38152 | 53.8 | 4.99 | 4.6 | 18.7 | 102.7 |
| Vermont | 31166 | 86.8 | 9.67 | 4.8 | 14.3 | 83.9 |
| Washington | 39283 | 63.5 | 5.42 | 5.3 | 24.8 | 105.7 |
| Wisconsin | 32779 | 70.7 | 5.84 | 4.8 | 18.4 | 88.2 |
| West Virginia | 28688 | 79.8 | 4.63 | 3.0 | 17.5 | 77.2 |
| Wyoming | 29772 | 86.6 | 4.70 | 6.1 | 11.6 | 80.2 |
| US Average | 37154 | 61.4 | 6.56 | 4.8 | 19.0 | 100.0 |
Definitions of the Categories
Here are the definitions of the various categories, along with their relative weighting in creating the Milken Institute's overall index:
- Wage per Employee
- Measures the average annual wage per employee in all industries (receives 50% weight).
- Tax Burden
- Measures the annual state and local tax revenue as a share of personal income as of 2004 (receives 20% weight).
- Electricity Cost
- Measures the 2003 cost of commercial and industrial electricity cost in cents per kilowatt-hour (receives 15% weight).
- Industrial Square Footage Cost
- Measures the 2005 cost of renting industrial (warehouse) space on a per square foot basis (receives 10% weight).
- Office Square Footage Cost
- Measures the 2005 cost of renting office space on a per square foot basis (receives 5% weight).
The overall index applies the weightings for each of the categories above, and measures it against the U.S. average. An index score of 100 indicates that the state is at the U.S. average for the overall cost of doing business. An index score of 125 indicates that the cost of doing business in the state is 25% above the U.S. average. Likewise, a state with an index score of 75 is 25% below the U.S. average.