What CEOs Have to Say About Florida
Bottom Line: It would appear that the harder news outlets try to besmirch Florida, the harder they fail. That proved true in the early months of the pandemic in which national news media would regularly show people on beaches enjoying their lives and patronizing businesses. It continued as Florida resumed classroom education for the start of the 2020-2021 school year and it reached a crescendo when Governor DeSantis prevented South Florida’s governments from locking down businesses and restricting the rights of Floridians. In end, as we learned, what many Americans saw was freedom. And what Florida saw was record net migration from people seeking it, which continues to this day. We’re also seeing a different version of a similar thing playout with businesses.
For the 2nd consecutive year, the annual CEO study conducted by the Chief Executive Group ranks Florida as the 2nd best state for business. Florida gained on Texas over the past year and the current ranking is the highest in the 22-year history of the study. This comes after Governor DeSantis specifically, but Florida generally, has regularly been reported in a negative light over its protracted battle with Disney. As was cited in the CEO study this year: The big question going into our annual Best & Worst States survey of CEOs this year: Would Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ high-profile battle with Walt Disney Co. sour CEOs on Florida as a site for locating and expanding their companies? The answer, it seems, is no. And that’s due to Florida not just having led the country in net migration for each of the past five years, but having led in business and talent relocations over the past two years as well as has been reflected in Lightcast’s Talent Attraction Scorecard. In fact, Florida’s business formation activity, which is a combination of business migration and startups, has been 27% higher after the pandemic than before it.
Just as many in news media projected their personal opinions through Governor DeSantis’ handling of pandemic policy, misreading the room in the process. A different version of a similar thing appears to be playing out with their reporting of Governor DeSantis’ desire to have Disney operate on a level playing field as all other businesses within our state do. Florida has never ranked higher among the fifty states for business and business leaders have never perceived Florida to be as favorable for business as they currently do.