With the U.S. projected to spend $581 billion on research and development in 2019 and NYC recently backing out of the deal for Amazon’s HQ2, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2019’s Most & Least Innovative States
Key Stats
- The District of Columbia has the highest share of STEM professionals, 9.80 percent, three times higher than in Mississippi, the lowest at 3.30 percent.
- The District of Columbia has the highest share of technology companies, 8.40 percent, 3.2 times higher than in South Dakota, the lowest at 2.60 percent.
- New Mexico has the highest research and development (R&D) intensity, 6.52 percent, 16.3 times higher than in Nevada, the lowest at 0.40 percent.
- Florida has the highest share of public high-school students taking advanced-placement (AP) exams, 51.91 percent, 3.9 times higher than in North Dakota, the lowest at 13.22 percent.
In order to give credit to the states that have contributed the most to America’s innovative success, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 24 key metrics. The data set ranges from share of STEM professionals to R&D spending per capita.
| Most Innovative States | Least Innovative States | |||
| 1 | Massachusetts | 42 | Nebraska | |
| 2 | Washington | 43 | South Dakota | |
| 3 | District of Columbia | 44 | Kentucky | |
| 4 | Maryland | 45 | Hawaii | |
| 5 | Colorado | 46 | North Dakota | |
| 6 | California | 47 | Tennessee | |
| 7 | Virginia | 48 | Iowa | |
| 8 | Utah | 49 | West Virginia | |
| 9 | Delaware | 50 | Louisiana | |
| 10 | Oregon | 51 | Mississippi | |
To view the full report and your state or the District’s rank, please visit:
https://wallethub.com/edu/