{"id":368249,"date":"2026-07-10T13:35:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T13:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/368249\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T13:35:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T13:35:14","slug":"texas-falls-slightly-in-national-state-business-ranking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/368249\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas falls slightly in national state business ranking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas is the country\u2019s fourth-best state for business in 2026, according to a widely watched ranking from CNBC<\/a> \u2014 a position that actually represents a slight downgrade for the famously pro-business Lone Star State. Last year, Texas ranked second overall, behind only North Carolina. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In this year\u2019s ranking, published by CNBC on Thursday, Texas scored first in the cable channel\u2019s workforce category, which it measured factors like worker training programs, economic output per job and states\u2019 ability to attract talent. Texas also scored second in the economy category, which measured recent GDP growth and job growth, and third in technology and innovation, which considered factors like new patents per capita and research and development grants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Texas also scored highly in the ranking\u2019s cost of doing business and infrastructure categories. This year \u2014 as energy and utility concerns continue to play a larger role across the country \u2014 CNBC actually weighted infrastructure as its most important category, accounting for around 18% of the total score.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s become an economic imperative,\u201d Stuart Lacey, the founder of the AI firm Labyrnth, which provided data for the study, told the outlet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Texas scored nearly last \u2014 49th, ahead of only Tennessee \u2014 in CNBC\u2019s quality of life measurement, which looked at factors such as crime rates, healthcare and environmental quality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And in business friendliness \u2014 a category that would seemingly be made for Texas, where tracking corporate relocations has become a local pastime and politicians love to use phrases like \u201ceconomic linchpin\u201d <\/a>\u2014 Texas actually scored a middling 23rd, behind even high-tax Connecticut, Vermont and Minnesota.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To come up with scores for that category CNBC measured factors including states\u2019 regulatory frameworks, liability climates and overall levels of bureaucracy. It also measured states\u2019 friendliness toward emerging industries such as artificial intelligence, digital assets and cryptocurrency \u2014 a metric where Texas, which for years has been passing crypto-friendly legislation<\/a> and cranking out new data centers, would seem to shine.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlockchain is a booming industry that Texas needs to be involved in,\u201d Gov. Greg Abbott wrote on social media in 2021, after signing one crypto legislative roadmap bill. \u201cTexas will be the crypto leader,\u201d he promised soon after. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In this year\u2019s ranking, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia \u2014 another state where data centers are booming \u2014 took the top three spots, and Minnesota rounded out the top five. The lowest-ranking states were Hawaii, Alaska, Rhode Island, Louisiana and West Virginia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas is the country\u2019s fourth-best state for business in 2026, according to a widely watched ranking from CNBC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-368249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}