Louisiana Gains Top Grade In National Small Business Survey

BATON ROUGE, La. — Today, Thumbtack.com gave Louisiana a grade of A in its 2015 report card on small business friendliness, ranking the state No. 4 in the U.S. for its supportive small business environment. Louisiana earned an A in eight specific categories of the state’s small business climate and a grade of B in three other categories.

The grades are part of an annual survey of small businesses through the United States conducted by Thumbtack in conjunction with the Kauffman Foundation. In addition to the top grade Louisiana received for small business friendliness, other ratings for the state include A grades for ease of starting a small business; regulatory friendliness; friendliness of health and safety regulations; friendliness of employment, labor and hiring regulations; friendliness of licensing regulations; friendliness of tax code; and friendliness of environmental regulations. Louisiana scored a B for ease of hiring a new employee; friendliness of zoning regulations; and training and networking programs.

Gov. Bobby Jindal said, “Small businesses are vital to the Louisiana economy and important contributors to the overall well-being of communities throughout Louisiana. We place great importance on helping our small businesses to grow and succeed, and since 2008 we have put in place a broad range of programs and services to make that happen. We are gratified to see those efforts recognized in the Thumbtack.com rankings.”

Nearly 18,000 small business owners responded to the nationwide survey. The study asked respondents to rate their state and city governments across a broad range of policy factors. Thumbtack.com then evaluated states and cities against one another in the category metrics.

“Small business owners on Thumbtack have consistently told us that they welcome support from their governments but are frequently frustrated by unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles,” Thumbtack.com Chief Economist Jon Lieber said. “In Louisiana, we’ve heard the state does a great job with entrepreneur-friendly regulations, and this year they saw a huge improvement in the quality of outreach from the state government.”

Complete survey results may be found online at Thumbtack.com/survey.

Louisiana Economic Development provides a variety of programs and services throughout the state to support the growth and success of small businesses. Workforce development programs, one-on-one business consulting to entrepreneurs, specialized resources for veteran-owned, women-owned and minority-owned businesses and other forms of assistance are available to small businesses throughout Louisiana. For more information about LED resources for small businesses, visit OpportunityLouisiana.com/SmallBusiness.

Louisiana has ranked among the Top 5 states in the Thumbtack.com survey for three of the past four years. The state now places higher in all national business climate rankings than it ever did prior to 2008. In five national business climate rankings – those published by Area Development, Business Facilities, Chief Executive, Site Selection and international location marketing firm DCI – Louisiana now ranks among the Top 10 states in the U.S. Site Selection named LED the best-performing state economic development agency in the nation in 2011 and No. 2 in the nation in 2015, and Pollina Corporate Real Estate ranked LED tied for the best-performing state economic development agency in the nation in 2013.

About Thumbtack
Thumbtack.com is a technology-based marketplace that connects millions of Americans to experienced local professionals to help them accomplish personal projects. More than 200,000 small business professionals actively use Thumbtack each quarter, across nearly a thousand categories, and Thumbtack professionals help customers with more than 5 million projects annually. Founded in 2009 and headquartered in San Francisco, Thumbtack has raised a total of $150 million from Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management, Javelin Investment Partners, and Google Capital. For more information, visit Thumbtack.com.