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Central Illinois Gazette

For once, Illinois isn't last in something

Posted by: Tom Kacich

Tuesday, November 18, 2008 9:39 PM

This isn't great news for a state that for a while was promoting itself as Silicon Prairie. (Remember those pre-Blagojevich days?)

Our state is deep in the hole financially, money is coming in below projections, we can't pay our bills and we're doing nothing to attract new business and help existing ones thrive.

And now this ...

In a report sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, ITIF employs 29 indicators to assess the extent to which the 50 state economies are structured according to the tenets of the New Economy. The changing economic landscape requires state economies to be innovative, globally-linked, entrepreneurial and dynamic, with an educated workforce and all sectors embracing the use of information technology. The report, which updates and expands on the State New Economy Index reports from 2002 and 2007, ranks the states accordingly. The five states ranking the highest in 2008 are, in order of rank, Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. With these measures as a frame of reference, the report outlines the next generation of innovative state-level public policies needed to meet the challenges of the New Economy, improve state competitiveness and boost incomes of all Americans.

Illinois ranks No. 16, just ahead of Michigan and Texas.

http://www.itif.org/index.php?id=200