Survey findings and summary
After a two-month survey of over 6,000 small business owners nationwide, Thumbtack.com has released new data showing that Baltimore earned a 'D' for the business-friendliness of its regulations. One bright spot for the city, however, was its 'B' for the cost of hiring new employees.
Some of the key findings for Baltimore include:
- Baltimore ranked as the #3 worst in the nation for its zoning regulations.
- The Capital Region is the state's stand-out region, receiving #1 rankings for 8 of the 17 categories rated by small businesses. In contrast, the Baltimore region fails along multiple dimensions, receiving the lowest ranking for a variety of categories - the region is the state's most difficult for starting a new business and has the state's worst-publicized training programs. Small businesses rated Western Maryland as being the state's second-least costly region for hiring a new employee, but the region's businesses were also the state's #1 slowest-growing.
