Is Texas a top state for business? New reports find mixed results

by the numbers

When it comes to Texas being a top state for business, we guess the jury's out. Photo via Getty Images

Texas economic development boosters are crowing about a new top-in-the-nation ranking. But they’re probably frowning about a different business ranking that’s mediocre.

First, the good news.

Business Facilities magazine just named Texas the 2023 State of the Year in recognition of its business climate, economic development leadership, and “blockbuster” year for capital investment and job creation. It’s the fifth time that Business Facilities has crowned Texas as the top state.

“Texas moves at the speed of business,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a news release. “As recognized by Business Facilities magazine, Texas leads the nation for corporate relocations, business expansions, and job creation.”

“With the best business climate in the nation, leading investments in education and workforce development, and our young, skilled, diverse, and growing workforce, Texas is poised to lead the nation in 2024,” the governor added.

Additionally, Texas again appears on WalletHub's annual list of "Best States to Start a Business" — but ranks lower than last year. The Lone Star State ranked No. 8 this year compared to last year's No. 3 spot. This ranking looked at business environment, access to resources, and business costs across 25 relevant metrics by analyzing data from U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and other resources.

Now, the not-so-good news.

Texas landed at No. 32 on Forbes Advisor’s new list of the best states to start a small business in 2024. The Lone Star State received especially low marks economy, workforce, and business climate, but fared better in two other categories: business costs and financial accessibility.

Topping the Forbes Advisor list was North Dakota, followed by Indiana, Arkansas, South Dakota, and North Carolina.

Texas recently was awarded three other No. 1 business climate rankings, though: Best Business Climate in the U.S. by Business Facilities in June, Best Business Climate in the U.S. by corporate executives in September, and Top Business Climate in the U.S. by Site Selection Magazine in November.

“In a state the size of Texas, business is not just finding a home in the metros. A laser focus by economic developers across the state to foster established businesses as well as innovative startups is paying off for communities of all sizes,” Anne Cosgrove, editorial director of Business Facilities, says in a news release.

The magazine covers corporate site selection and economic development.

Other contenders for 2023 State of the Year were:

  • Arizona
  • Florida
  • Georgia
  • Indiana
  • Missouri
  • Nevada
  • North Carolina
  • Tennessee
  • Utah
  • Virginia
So this is how the other half lives. Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Here's the income it takes to live among the top 1 percent in Texas

isn't that rich?

Wondering how "the other half lives" is so outdated, especially when we we can easily peek into what life is like for the "one percent." A new report from SmartAsset reveals how much money you'll need to be considered the top one percent in Texas.

With two Houston suburbs landing among the richest cities in Texas in a recent report, it's obvious that the Lone Star State is dotted with pockets of wealth. But how much do you actually need in your pocket to have a top one percent income?

In Texas, an annual income of $641,400 will land you at the top, while $258,400 only gets you to the top five percent.

To come up with those numbers, SmartAsset analyzed 2019 data from IRS tax units and adjusted the figures to 2022 dollars using the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For comparison, "the average American household earns a median income of under $70,000," according to the study. And per the latest figures from the U. S. Census Bureau, the median household income in Texas (in 2021 dollars) is $67,321. That leaves plenty of us with a long way to go in our financial striving.

So now we know how we compare to our neighbors, but where does that put the affluent population of Texas in comparison with other states?

For starters, Texas claimed the 10th highest income required to reach top income levels.

The one percent income threshold is hardest to meet in Connecticut ($955,000), Massachusetts ($900,000), New Jersey ($825,965), New York ($817,796), and California ($805,519). Only these five states have thresholds that exceed $800,00, and it's a pretty steep drop down to Texas ($641,400) in 10th place.

The five states where it's easiest to attain one percent status (even though that doesn't seem like good news) are Kentucky ($447,300), Arkansas ($446,276), New Mexico ($418,970), Mississippi ($383,128), and West Virginia ($374,712).

The SmartAsset report also included average tax rates for top earners in each state. There was surprisingly little variance in the top 10 states, with Washington state having the lowest rate (25.02%) and Connecticut collecting the highest tax rate (27.77%).

Texas was in the middle of the pack with a tax rate of 25.71% levied on top one percent incomes.

The 10 states with the highest earnings required to be a one-percenter and their tax rates are:

  1. Connecticut ($955.3K, Tax rate 27.77%)
  2. Massachusetts ($896.9K, Tax rate 26.4%)
  3. New Jersey ($826K, Tax rate 27.36%)
  4. New York ($817.8K, Tax rate 27.48%)
  5. California ($805.5K, Tax rate 26.78%)
  6. Washington ($736.1K, Tax rate 25.02%)
  7. Colorado ($682.9K, Tax rate 25.24%)
  8. Florida ($678.8K, Tax rate 25.23%)
  9. Illinois ($666.2K, Tax rate 26.23%)
  10. Texas ($641.4K, Tax rate 25.71%)
If you're on your way to being a top earner and want to do a deeper dive on those numbers, you can view the full report on the SmartAsset website.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Houston team develops low-cost device to treat infants with life-threatening birth defect

infant innovation

A team of engineers and pediatric surgeons led by Rice University’s Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies has developed a cost-effective treatment for infants born with gastroschisis, a congenital condition in which intestines and other organs are developed outside of the body.

The condition can be life-threatening in economically disadvantaged regions without access to equipment.

The Rice-developed device, known as SimpleSilo, is “simple, low-cost and locally manufacturable,” according to the university. It consists of a saline bag, oxygen tubing and a commercially available heat sealer, while mimicking the function of commercial silo bags, which are used in high-income countries to protect exposed organs and gently return them into the abdominal cavity gradually.

Generally, a single-use bag can cost between $200 and $300. The alternatives that exist lack structure and require surgical sewing. This is where the SimpleSilo comes in.

“We focused on keeping the design as simple and functional as possible, while still being affordable,” Vanshika Jhonsa said in a news release. “Our hope is that health care providers around the world can adapt the SimpleSilo to their local supplies and specific needs.”

The study was published in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery, and Jhonsa, its first author, also won the 2023 American Pediatric Surgical Association Innovation Award for the project. She is a recent Rice alumna and is currently a medical student at UTHealth Houston.

Bindi Naik-Mathuria, a pediatric surgeon at UTMB Health, served as the corresponding author of the study. Rice undergraduates Shreya Jindal and Shriya Shah, along with Mary Seifu Tirfie, a current Rice360 Global Health Fellow, also worked on the project.

In laboratory tests, the device demonstrated a fluid leakage rate of just 0.02 milliliters per hour, which is comparable to commercial silo bags, and it withstood repeated disinfection while maintaining its structure. In a simulated in vitro test using cow intestines and a mock abdominal wall, SimpleSilo achieved a 50 percent reduction of the intestines into the simulated cavity over three days, also matching the performance of commercial silo bags. The team plans to conduct a formal clinical trial in East Africa.

“Gastroschisis has one of the biggest survival gaps from high-resource settings to low-resource settings, but it doesn’t have to be this way,” Meaghan Bond, lecturer and senior design engineer at Rice360, added in the news release. “We believe the SimpleSilo can help close the survival gap by making treatment accessible and affordable, even in resource-limited settings.”

Texas among 5 hardest working states and more innovation news to know

Trending News

Editor's note: As we look back at the top Houston innovation news for the first half of September, reports show that Texas is one of the hardest working states, while local startup activity has slowed down. Plus, exciting medical innovation advancements. Here are the most-read InnovationMap stories from September 1-14.

1. Texas is the 4th hardest working state in America, report finds

Texas is home to some of the hardest workers. Photo via Getty Images

It's no secret that Texans are hardworking people. To align with the recent Labor Day holiday, a new WalletHub study asserts that the Lone Star State is one of the five most hardworking states in America for 2025. The report ranked Texas the fourth most hardworking state this year, indicating that its residents are working harder than ever after the state fell into seventh place in 2024. Continue reading.

2. UH receives $1M grant to advance research on rare pediatric disorder

The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation has granted $1.1M to the University of Houston to support research on Usher Syndrome. Photo courtesy University of Houston.

The University of Houston has received a two-year, $1.1 million gift from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation to advance research on a rare genetic disorder that can lead to both deafness and blindness in children, known as Usher Syndrome. The current grant will support the research of UH biomedical engineering professors Muna Naash and Muayyad Al-Ubaidi, who work in the Laboratory for Retinal Molecular and Cellular Biology and Gene Therapy in the Cullen College of Engineering. Continue reading.

3. Houston's surge in new startups cools since pandemic peak, study shows

Startup applications in Houston have dipped since their 2021 peak, even as national entrepreneurship hits record highs, according to a new report from The Kaplan Group. Photo via Getty Images.

Startup activity in the Houston metro area has dipped since its pandemic peak, according to a new study. Dating back to 2005, the volume of applications to form new businesses in the Houston area hit its highest level in 2021 (151,804). Since then, though, the application volume has fallen, according to the study, conducted by business debt collection agency The Kaplan Group. Continue reading.

4. TMC lands $3M grant to launch cancer device accelerator

Recent funding from CPRIT will help launch the new Accelerator for Cancer Medical Devices. Photo via TMC

A new business accelerator at Houston’s Texas Medical Center has received a nearly $3 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. The CPRIT grant, awarded to the Texas Medical Center Foundation, will help launch the Accelerator for Cancer Medical Devices. The accelerator will support emerging innovators in developing prototypes for cancer-related medical devices and advancing them from prototype to clinical trials. Continue reading.

5. 10 Houston billionaires make Forbes' list of richest Americans in 2025

Pictured: Nancy and Richard Kinder, the richest Houstonian, according to the Forbes 400. Photo by Michelle Watson/Catchlight Group

America's wealthiest billionaires are $1.2 trillion richer in 2025, bringing their collective worth to a staggering $6.6 trillion. And Houston's own Richard Kinder has become the richest billionaire in the city, according to the new Forbes 400. The Kinder Morgan chairman is the 11th richest Texas resident and ranks as the 108th richest American. Kinder also dethroned Tilman Fertitta to claim the title as the wealthiest Houstonian. The annual Forbes 400 list is a definitive ranking of the wealthiest Americans, using interviews, financial data, and documentation provided by billionaires and their companies. Continue reading.

Oxy's $1.3B Texas carbon capture facility on track to​ launch this year

gearing up

Houston-based Occidental Petroleum is gearing up to start removing CO2 from the atmosphere at its $1.3 billion direct air capture (DAC) project in the Midland-Odessa area.

Vicki Hollub, president and CEO of Occidental, said during the company’s recent second-quarter earnings call that the Stratos project — being developed by carbon capture and sequestration subsidiary 1PointFive — is on track to begin capturing CO2 later this year.

“We are immensely proud of the achievements to date and the exceptional record of safety performance as we advance towards commercial startup,” Hollub said of Stratos.

Carbon dioxide captured by Stratos will be stored underground or be used for enhanced oil recovery.

Oxy says Stratos is the world’s largest DAC facility. It’s designed to pull 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air and either store it underground or use it for enhanced oil recovery. Enhanced oil recovery extracts oil from unproductive reservoirs.

Most of the carbon credits that’ll be generated by Stratos through 2030 have already been sold to organizations such as Airbus, AT&T, All Nippon Airways, Amazon, the Houston Astros, the Houston Texans, JPMorgan, Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks and TD Bank.

The infrastructure business of investment manager BlackRock has pumped $550 million into Stratos through a joint venture with 1PointFive.

As it gears up to kick off operations at Stratos, Occidental is also in talks with XRG, the energy investment arm of the United Arab Emirates-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., to form a joint venture for the development of a DAC facility in South Texas. Occidental has been awarded up to $650 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to build the South Texas DAC hub.

The South Texas project, to be located on the storied King Ranch, will be close to industrial facilities and energy infrastructure along the Gulf Coast. Initially, the roughly 165-square-mile site is expected to capture 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, with the potential to store up to 3 billion metric tons of CO2 per year.

“We believe that carbon capture and DAC, in particular, will be instrumental in shaping the future energy landscape,” Hollub said.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

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