California Business Minute™

Hi, I am Tim Johnson and welcome to the California Business Minute.

California is the “Not-so-Golden State” according to a report on business failure
rates by Dun and Bradstreet.

Apparently, California's small business failure rate was 69% higher than the national
average, the worst of all the states, the report said.

Nevada has the next highest business failure rate 65% higher than the national average.
It is followed by New Hampshire with 38%, Tennessee with 36% and Colorado with 33%.

Nevada and California made the list because of real estate markets hard hit by the
recession, said Byron Vielehr, president of global risk and analytics at Dun &
Bradstreet. The housing market collapse hit small business hard, he said.

On the other side of the coin, North Dakota, Vermont, Iowa, Wyoming, and Kansas have
the lowest rate of small business failures. North Dakota had a 67% lower failure rate
than the national average, followed by Vermont with 47%, Wyoming and Iowa (40%) and
Kansas (39%). North Dakota, Wyoming and Iowa have all been in the top five for the
past four years.

These rural states did not have the economic boom that other areas of the country had,
so the fall during the recession was not so stark, said Alla Kramskaia, senior director
of statistical consulting at Dun & Bradstreet Global Analytics. North Dakota and Wyoming's
economies were also supported by their rich energy resources, said Kramskaia.

I am Tim Johnson and this has been the California Business Minute.