The Buckeye Business Boom

BY STEVE STIVERS

IN JULY, CNBC released its annual Top States for Business rankings, and Ohio was proud to place seventh overall. We also ranked second in cost of doing business and fourth in cost of living.

In 2023, Ohio ranked 12th overall, and in 2022, we were 15th. Our current position shows that we are steadily improving each year, and that’s not surprising: we know that Ohio is a great state in which to live and work. We have a low cost of living and a high quality of life, and our GDP is the seventh largest in the United States. We have had a number of big wins in the past few years with companies like Intel and Honda making significant new investments in our state, and that leads us to believe we’re doing something right.

In October 2022, the Ohio Chamber released our Blueprint for Ohio’s Economic Future, a long-term strategic plan that analyzes Ohio’s economic outlook and compares it to other states. The Blueprint identifies six key areas of opportunity for Ohio and outlines the steps we must take to improve them. In creating our own policy priorities, the Ohio Chamber looks first to the Blueprint and its recommendations.

In creating this report, we identified several key areas of improvement for Ohio. These areas of opportunity include education and workforce, sense of place, taxes and costs, business friendliness, innovation and collaboration, and infrastructure.

Each of these six levers plays an important role in making our state the best it can be. So far, the Ohio Chamber has had a strong focus on business friendliness. The Blueprint’s two primary recommendations for business friendliness were to expand the cleanup of regulatory policies and create efficiency and transparency of license and permit applications.

One of our policy priorities for the current General Assembly was to streamline Ohio’s Administrative Code. This was accomplished through a bill that reduced up to one-third of Ohio Administrative Code through the targeting of duplicative provisions, outdated sections, and unnecessary requirements. Our government affairs staff worked closely with the legislature to ensure that this was accomplished.

We’ve also been focused on our state’s occupational licensing landscape, which is more complex and restrictive than many comparison states. Throughout this general assembly, we’ve worked on a number of bills that helped to reduce regulatory burdens associated with occupational licensing. Ultimately, we want to make it easier for people in Ohio to acquire certain licenses and for people moving to Ohio to start working immediately if they have a license or credential.

In 2021, in the data used to create the Blueprint, Ohio ranked 47th in business friendliness. When we worked to eliminate some of these unnecessary barriers, our ranking improved—this year, we ranked 24th. We certainly still have some room for improvement, but we are proud of what we’ve achieved so far.

Our next big focuses at the Ohio Chamber in 2025 will be in the policy areas of workforce, taxes, and energy. We look forward to improving upon these three metrics, continuing to rise in next year’s CNBC rankings, and making our state the best it can be for business owners and residents.

Steve Stivers is president and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.