Alabama Named America’s Most Improved State for Business by CNBC: Here’s Why

In CNBC's annual business competitiveness study, Alabama has been recognized as the most improved state. The state now ranks as the 20th best state for business, a significant leap of 22 places from its position last year.

This improvement is largely attributed to Alabama's remarkable progress in the net migration of college-educated workers, moving from last place to 14th in 2022, based on U.S. Census Bureau data. Additionally, Alabama advanced 20 places in the workforce ranking, tying for 24th place with New Hampshire and Wisconsin.

Key drivers of these improvements are the Huntsville area and the state’s site readiness programs, which connect potential businesses with ready-to-build sites. CNBC’s survey evaluates the 50 states using 128 different metrics across 10 categories of competitiveness.

The top-ranked states are Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, and Florida. The survey assesses how states market themselves to potential corporate investors, with each category weighted based on the frequency of its use in economic development marketing.

Infrastructure is now the most heavily weighted category, replacing workforce, which held that position for the past decade. The workforce category considers the concentration of STEM workers, educational attainment levels, talent attraction success, worker training programs, right-to-work laws, and worker productivity.

Other evaluated categories include quality of life, cost of doing business, technology and innovation, business friendliness, education, access to capital, and cost of living.

Alabama received high marks for infrastructure, education, business friendliness, cost of living, and cost of doing business. However, the state’s scores were negatively impacted by low rankings in access to capital and economy, and a failing grade in quality of life.

Only 27% of Alabama adults aged 25 and older hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, placing the state seventh lowest in the country. Alabama also ranked 45th for primary care doctors, 49th for dentists, and last for mental health providers.