STATE OF THE STATES 2012

The following pages highlight recent corporate facility projects, new laws and incentives policies, wages, employment, demographics and cost-of-doing-business facts in one easy-to-digest compendium.

The status of the United States as a nation owes much if not most of its character to the livelihoods of its individual members. In 2011, for the first time in 10 years, states reported that they cut taxes more than they increased them, reports the National Council of State Legislatures. “But what looked like a cut on many ledgers were actually temporary tax increases that were allowed to expire in several different tax categories,” the NCSL explains. The organization’s 2011 “State Tax Update,” released in September, reported the following trends: Personal income taxes saw a net increase of nearly $2.5 billion; corporate and business taxes saw a net decrease of $807 million; sales and use taxes saw a net decrease of more than $5.2 billion; healthcare provider and industry taxes saw a net increase of nearly $2 billion; tobacco, alcohol and motor fuel taxes increased by $88 million; and fees and other non-tax changes totaled $1 billion.

The nine states with net tax cuts greater than 1 percent are California, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio and West Virginia.

The Census Bureau in mid-December reported that total state government revenue increased to $2.0 trillion in 2010, up 79 percent from $1.1 trillion in 2009, resulting mainly from large increases in social insurance trust revenue, such as that attached to unemployment and workers’ comp programs, employee retirement, Social Security and Medicare.

Among other indicators, state government spending on education in 2010 totaled more than 40 percent of general expenditures in 14 states, led by Indiana (46.6 percent), Georgia (46.3 percent) and Texas (45.6 percent).

— Adam Bruns

A note on the layout: Our business plan for this project offered exclusive sponsorship to advertisers allied with particular states, up to a full page. States supported by a half-page or less of advertising are represented here by half-pages of data.

WEB TOOLS YOU CAN USE: As you wind your way across a nation’s worth of data, take note of the extra navigation built into each state’s data page by clicking on the state economic development or commerce department’s Web address to visit that agency directly.

Data Sources include: Hickey & Associates LLC State Incentives Database; BLS; BEA; NBER; Census Bureau; Conway Data; state chambers of commerce, economic development agencies and associations; press reports; governors’ offices; law firms; and legislative documents.