By EILEEN KENNEDY, Telegraph Staff

Published: Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2004

New Hampshire’s economy rates a place on the honor roll, earning As and Bs according to a 2004 economic report card issued today by a nonprofit organization that analyzes the economies of all 50 states each year.

The Corporation for Enterprise Development, which ranks each state in more than 60 characteristics, shows New Hampshire as first in the nation in the number of employers who offer employee health care.

The agency also reported that the Granite State has the lowest rates in the country for poverty, infant mortality, teen pregnancy and crime. New Hampshire also rated first in the percentage of fourth graders that are proficient in math in 2003, compared to last year’s rating of 41. New Hampshire also increased its fourth-grade students’ reading proficiency, now ranked second out of 50, compared to last year’s ranking of 44.

The state was one of eight states included on the honor roll, along with Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Minnesota, Oregon, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The report card highlighted the state’s strengths. Only four other states - South Dakota, Nebraska, North Dakota and Virginia - have lower unemployment rates than New Hampshire and Hawaii, who tied.

New Hampshire also rated highly on quality jobs and competitive businesses. However, some of its weaknesses include the quality of its infrastructure and innovation - something many in the state, including Gov. Craig Benson, have prided themselves on. New Hampshire also ranked well in its investment in financial resources and efficient use of its resources.

It also ranked third in the country for the amount of venture capital invested per worker in the state.

The CFED has a mission to create economic opportunity by helping “the poor move to prosperity while strengthening the overall economy.” The agency believes that by providing these report cards for states, those in economic development positions can use the data to help them in their work.

“It’s encouraging to see such a strong resurgence of the American entrepreneurial spirit,” said David Buchholz, the agency’s research director, in a prepared statement.

There are three major categories, which each have a number of factors, on which the states are rated: performance, business vitality and development capacity. The state has gotten an A in performance for the last eight years, according to the agency. That category includes quality of life, where the state rates first in employer health coverage, poverty rate, infant mortality, teen pregnancy, crime rate and the percentage of fourth graders who are proficient in math in 2003.

“It’s nice to see that the state has ranked well,” said Dennis Delay, an economist and a special projects director for the Workforce Opportunity Council, which manages the federal money available for retraining workers who loose their jobs. “The real measure is are there more jobs and is employment growing, and that is the case here in New Hampshire.”

Delay said he was surprised that the state received a C in entrepreneurial energy, since so much of the state is made of small and medium businesses, and prides itself on its entrepreneurial spirit.

Performance also includes employment, earnings and job quality, equity and how efficiently resources are used. New Hampshire’s unemployment rate was rated fifth in the nation by the agency. The state’s unemployment rate remained between 3 percent and 3.5 percent for the last half of the year, in comparison with the nation’s rate, which remains at about 5 percent.

The worst grade the state received was an F in infrastructure, which falls under the development capacity category. Infrastructure includes highway performance, bridge deficiency, urban mass transit, sewage treatment needs and electronic public services.

It also ranked low in job growth due to new businesses, average teacher pay, energy costs, loans made to small businesses, charitable giving and urban mass transit.

Stuart Arnett, director of New Hampshire’s Division of Economic Development, said the overall rating is a good one, and that the state has already embarked on a number of suggestions the agency made to states in general. Since the state has a lack of urban areas, and those areas do not have extensive public transportation, it isn’t a surprise that the state would get a low grade like an F in infrastructure.

In the past year, the state’s Department of Resources and Economic Development, of which Arnett’s division is a part, has been holding entrepreneurial events, trying to provide a way for companies to access a variety of information on where to get help to expand or grow a business, as well as forums on how start up businesses can find investment money.

The state just finished its yearly economic development summit on Tuesday, Arnett said, where state officials, business people and other officials discussed a variety of topics related to growing, moving or finding investment money and has developed a plan to help increase entrepreneurial growth in New Hampshire.
Eileen Kennedy can be reached at 594-6499 or .