By Denise Perreault
PBN Staff Writer
MUNCIE, Ind. – U.S. manufacturers had a record year in 2007, according to a study released today by Ball State University. But the report, which examined manufacturing conditions in all states, ranked Rhode Island among those at the bottom.
The “2008 National Manufacturing and Logistics Report Card” gave an “A” to the states of Missouri, Utah, Florida, Alabama, North Dakota and Indiana. The ranking was based on 20 factors, including property taxes, sales taxes, unemployment insurance, corporate taxes, crime and the percentage of the population that holds college diplomas.
Earning an “F” for their manufacturing climates were the states of Rhode Island, Kentucky, Maine, New York, New Jersey, Vermont and West Virginia, the report said.
Overall, however, the report’s author was optimistic about the U.S. manufacturing sector.
“Despite record production levels, expanded investment and growth in both wages and productivity, the shrinking or static demand for workers results in a mistaken caricature of these industries as dying,” author Michael Hicks, the director of Ball State’s Bureau of Business Research, said in a statement today. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
The report found that “nationally, growth in the production of goods [continued] to be robust” throughout last year. Even in the final quarter of 2007, as the national economy slowed, industrial production rose at an annual rate of 2.8 percent.
Rhode Island ranked 45th and Massachusetts 36th in recent Forbes magazine’s recent annual ranking of the Best States for Business. (READ MORE) But the Ocean State fared better in a global business-costs ranking by accounting and consulting firm KPMG, which gave Providence high marks for competitiveness and rated Rhode Island as one of the top regions around the world for research and development spending per gross domestic product. (READ MORE)
Additional information – including the full 2008 National Manufacturing and Logistics Report Card – is available from Ball State University’s Bureau of Business Research under “Current Studies and Publications” at a href="http://cms.bsu.edu/Academics/CentersandInstitutes/BBR/CurrentStudiesandPublications.aspx">www.bsu.edu/bbr.
