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Thursday, CNBC – the business news arm of NBC – announced North Carolina as its ‘Top State for Business.’ The state has been on a winning streak in the ranking, taking the top spot in 2022 and 2023 and second-place honors in 2021 and 2024.
There was rejoicing on both sides of the aisle (which is not the same as a bipartisan celebration, but I digress), with Republicans like Congressman Tim Moore and State Senate leader Phil Berger taking to X to hype the announcement, and Democratic Governor Josh Stein taking the celebration on the road.
Stein appeared live on CNBC – from the deck of the battleship U.S.S. North Carolina, no less – to accept the accolade and talk about some of the economic challenges the state still faces. He also snuck in a quick photo-op with Wilmington council members outside the city’s shiny newish city hall and hastily organized a brief press huddle to “react” to the news.
Huddle up
Before I get into Stein’s quickie interview, let me say a few things.
First, I take most “best state for [whatever]” press releases with a grain of salt, at best. We get them all the time, and most go right to spam: over the last few weeks, we’ve had ‘best state for outdoor lovers,’ (Montana) ‘best state for sports fans,’ (Ohio) and ‘best state for hot dogs’ (they chickened out, saying every state had good options).
But, unlike infotainment releases backed by, say, the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (yes, a real thing, as is their website, “www.hot-dog.org”), CNBC is a far more reliable source. Its annual ranking isn’t an opinion poll; it’s based on reams of quantifiable data points, organized into ten weighted categories, with a methodologyyou can explore if you dispute something.
And, CNBC’s rankings track something that truly impacts everyone – unlike, say, the ‘best state to park an RV’ (with all due respect to RVers).
I will note, without going too far down this rabbit hole, that reducing the comparative economic successes and failures of the states to a kind of sports rivalry elides the fact that, for every prosperous North Carolina there’s a struggling Alaska, which came in last in large part because it failed to ‘wean itself’ off the oil industry and diversify its economy.
“We rank all 50 states, so if there are Top States, there must also be Bottom States,” CNBC wrote.
My point is, it's great to be a 'Top State,' but it somehow feels almost un-American to gloat, knowing that in a 'Bottom State' there's real-world suffering of workers and families (but, again, I digress).
Second, with all due respect to North Carolina governors, the state’s executive office is one of the weakest in the country; even in the most recent session, the Republican-controlled General Assembly has continued to shift various duties, powers, and appointment authority from the executive to the legislative branch.
And even if the governor’s office had more juice, Stein has only been in office for half a year – not long enough to take credit for the metrics that CNBC looks at. I don’t think you can give him much credit, or lay much blame at his feet, which made the whole ‘live from the Battleship’ extravaganza a little silly, honestly.
Third, I hate press huddles, especially slapdash ones. Stein’s office sent out a notice at 8:30 a.m., but didn’t include WHQR, even though we get most press releases from them. It was an honest mistake, I think, and to their credit, after I got snarky on Facebook about a ‘surprise visit,’ a Stein staffer called and asked if we were coming to the governor’s media appearance (I got the call at 10:22 a.m., the presser was at 11:30 a.m. – annoying, but doable, especially since it was down the street from us.)
This kind of pop-fly conference happens all the time, and they usually unfold like this: the office sends out a short-notice invite, staffers pick a photogenic and thematically appropriate location, reporters – mostly from TV news – stand around for about ten to fifteen minutes, the official shows up, makes some quick remarks, takes three or four questions, and leaves in a scrum of security and assistants.
In this case, Stein’s team posted up in the breezeway on the Front Street side of the Cotton Exchange, meaning there would be bustling shops full of tourists in the background. Not including a quick photo-op at the end with Hunter Ford, a business owner who crashed the end of the presser to give Stein a bottle of booze from his distillery, the whole thing took less than six minutes.
First in flight, first in business
“Today is a great day for North Carolina. We have been first in flight, now we are first in business,” Stein started.
It’s a perfectly suitable opening line, and Stein has riffed on the 'first in flight, first in [insert thing we're announcing]' motif before. But it kind of sets the tone and lets you know the level of policy depth you can probably expect.
And, I know, these aren’t sit-down interviews. They’re not really designed for in-depth questions. They’re fluffy by design, engineered to provide b-roll and sound bites for the next broadcast, and weightless but feel-good coverage of the official. Occasionally, you’ll see someone pry a little deeper, or try to pivot to a more important issue, but questions like these are usually batted away or evaded – artfully, politely, but definitively.
For example, here’s the first question Stein got (I think from WECT news):
“North Carolina has ranked number one in business three out of the last four years. What specific policies, changes, or investments do you believe make the biggest difference this year under your leadership?”
It’s a good question that most audiences would want to hear answered, helping to sharpen up the stakes and the reasons why Stein is out here in front of the cameras – basically, what did you do to help earn this title?
Here was Stein’s answer:
“It's all about our people. We have such talented people, hard-working people, friendly people. We have to make sure that they have the skills, the knowledge that they need to be competitive in what is an ever-changing economy. We have great public schools. They can be better. We need to pay our teachers more. We have an incredible community college system. We have great universities, public and private. So we really have the ability to offer to businesses everything they need. They can come here and know that they have the scientists and engineers to design their products and the workforce to build them.”
Other than the suggestion that teachers should be paid more, there’s nothing in here that can really be considered as an answer to the question.
And, look, I’ve known Stein for a while. I interviewed him about some heavy stuff when he served as Attorney General, including problems in law enforcement, child sexual abuse cases, the investigation into New Hanover County Schools, the SAFE Child Act (which he helped author), and more. While we’ve had our differences, he’s a smart and thoughtful guy. But this is argle bargle: a word salad of chopped pablum, folksy rah-rah, and safe generalities.
Of course, that’s exactly what these pressers are for – and that’s exactly why I don’t go to them (I think it would be very funny, and good for society, if all reporters just occasionally decided to boycott them – but, alas, the furnace of TV news must be fed fresh fuel).
Unfortunately for me, I’d already talked the talk on social media, so I felt compelled to walk the walk – especially since it was literally less than a block away from WHQR’s front door.
Question and answer-ish session
I wanted to ask Stein about some of the granular detail in CNBC’s report, which hadn’t made the splashy morning news interview or the upbeat press releases and social media posts from Stein, Moore, Berger, and others. More to the point, I wanted to ask about the middling scores North Carolina got for the cost of living, the cost of doing business, and - perhaps most damning – the quality of life, where we ranked 29th.
As I noted on Facebook and in our reporting earlier this week, here’s what CNBC wrote Thursday morning, about a third of the way down in the article:
While North Carolina is almost unfailingly friendly to business, it is not terribly friendly to workers. The state comes in at No. 29 for Quality of Life — its worst category in the CNBC study this year. Oxfam International, a left-leaning anti-poverty organization, ranks North Carolina dead last in its annual report on The Best and Worst States to Work in the U.S., citing an almost complete lack of worker protections. Also, North Carolina is one of only five states with no law protecting nondisabled people from discrimination in public accommodations, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
That’s a pretty harsh indictment – it’s also telling, given that it comes wedged in among paragraphs of praise for North Carolina’s pro-business qualities.
You don’t have to read too hard between the lines to see that business is winning at the expense, to a measurable extent, of workers.
I went into the press huddle prepared to ask about this, but it was Stein himself who actually teed up my question when, in his opening remarks, he said, “We have one of the strongest economies, excellent infrastructure, an incredible quality of life, but it all starts with our people.”
So I asked him, “this is from CNBC: they said that North Carolina is unfailingly friendly to business … not so friendly to workers. And the rankings – you talk about quality of life – they rank us 29th in quality of life, so bottom half of the states. Why is our economic success not translating into happy workers and quality of life?”
Here was Stein’s response:
“Well, I don't understand the metrics they used on the quality of life. All I know is that people who move to North Carolina don't move out of North Carolina. That tells me we have a fantastic quality of life, the natural beauty, the outdoor activities, the culture. There's a lot to offer here in North Carolina. We can do better by our workers, by helping them earn a better living. So what we're trying to do is recruit businesses that pay a higher wage. If people have more money in their pocket, they can afford a home, they can take a vacation with their family, they can securely retire. That's the future we want for North Carolina, more good-paying jobs, more opportunity, a better quality of life.”
Ok. A few things.
First, admitting you don’t understand the metrics of the CNBC report that you’re holding a press conference to celebrate seems, well, a little embarrassing and kind of lazy. But it’s also a missed opportunity, because – objectively speaking here – there’s a lot of grist for the political mill in CNBC’s research that Stein could have used.
Here’s CNBC’s rubric for ‘quality of life’:
With workers in short supply, companies are seeking to locate in states that can attract a broad array of talent. That makes quality of life an economic imperative. We rate the states on livability factors like per capita crime rates, environmental quality, and health care. With studies showing that childcare is one of the main obstacles to employees entering the workforce, we consider the availability and affordability of qualified facilities. We look at worker protections including livable wage policies, paid leave, and rights to organize. We look at inclusiveness in state laws, including protections against discrimination of all kinds, as well as voting rights and secure election systems. And with surveysshowing a sizeable percentage of younger workers would not live in a state that bans abortion, we factor reproductive rights in this category as well.
As a Democrat, Stein could have gone on the offensive here, pointing to the Republican-run General Assembly that has – for just two examples – restricted abortion and bent the knee to the manufacturing lobby and Chamber of Commerce on PFAS regulation (even Republican Ted Davis has had his ass handed to him repeatedly when he tried to push legislation through that would make Chemours pay for PFAS filtration).
To his credit, Stein did tout his proposed tax credit for child care – a meaty policy talking point and a huge factor in both economic development and quality of life – in response to a different question. But in response to my question, Stein mostly offered fluff.
Second, there should be a moratorium on politicians, from both parties, implicitly taking credit for the state’s natural beauty. If you’re housing-burdened and working multiple jobs, that’s not gonna cut it. I’ll save the beach parking rant for another time, but you get the idea.
Third, Stein’s answer was, basically, ‘I think we do have a good quality of life (I dunno what these CNBC guys are talking about) but I acknowledge we can do more for workers, so we’re going to bring in better employers.’
But North Carolina has over 4 million private sector workers – it’s going to be hard to give them all better options just by incentivizing and recruiting new employers. Moreover, almost half of those employees work for small businesses (like the shops located behind Stein during the presser). The quality of their lives depends a lot on the success of those small companies, which struggle with the ‘cost of doing business,’ a category in which CNBC ranked North Carolina an unimpressive 21st in the country. Making it easier for small businesses to succeed is a way to help millions of North Carolians – and that has nothing to do with enticing big tech or manufacturing operations. The quality of life for employees, of companies large and small, also depends on worker protections and benefits – you know, the stuff CNBC used to rank the states.
So, understandably, I had a lot of follow-up questions that I knew I wasn’t going to be allowed to ask. Stein’s assistant was already itching to wrap things up as I was asking my first question, and tried to jump in after the governor finished answering. But I figured I could probably jam one more question in, so I did.
“I gotta say, if you're not gonna agree with the rankings for quality of life, why celebrate the rankings for economic success?” I asked him.
“Well, what I said was, I don't know what metrics they use, so I have to look to see how they came up with their ranking. Look, can things be better? Yes, we're on our toes. We always want North Carolina to be at the top. I wanted to get a perfect score. We did not get a perfect score. So we will constantly ask ourselves, what can we do better? Other states want what we have here in North Carolina. We've got to stay aggressive to make sure we're making the right investments in our people, in our infrastructure, so that we remain on top,” Stein replied.
Stein is a seasoned pro, and he didn’t take the bait – which was me asking, in essence, ‘why are you out here celebrating this CNBC award when you clearly didn’t read or get briefed on the whole report, which is based on some pretty disappointing data points?’
Revising his own words on the fly, he tried to back away from the obvious conflict between the ‘quality of life’ he touted in his opening remarks and the category where CNBC gave North Carolina its worst marks. And he managed to land on a strong note. If I were grading on rhetorical skill – which is how these pressers are graded, basically – I’d give high marks.
But if I were grading on policy, not so much.
Follow-ups: For what? For whom?
By this point, some of you will be saying, ‘Good lord, Ben, just let the man have his little press conference.’ After all, this was a win everyone can celebrate, and there’s so much endlessly negative news in the cycle, can we just have a damn win? Or, maybe, ‘yeah, it’s a silly ranking, but who cares, go cover something more important.’
In my defense, I didn't drive to Raleigh and harass Stein about this. He came to Wilmington (not sure what motivated the location choice, other than the Battleship, which made for good TV) and held a press conference.
But, that aside, let me wrap up by saying this:
Economic development is important. I grew up outside of Camden, a city that hit its vibrant, diverse peak in the 1950s before being ground down by capital flight, followed by White flight, compounded by redlining, housing covenants, and an interstate that cleaved the downtown in two. By the time I was in high school, Camden was one of the poorest and most violent cities in the nation. The sense of hopelessness, the oppressive lack of options, the absence of escape routes up out of that kind of poverty – it was palpable just standing on the street. And it was the most vulnerable who paid the price for all that.
Coming up short economically isn’t just a black eye for politicians; it hurts people. Conversely, if you want to help people, if you really want to move the needle on crime, affordable housing, mental health, and more – you could do a lot worse than increasing economic opportunity.
But I think officials – sometimes with the media as their willing or clueless accomplices – often conflate economic booms and generalities with the lived experience of workers.
This was perhaps the greatest public relations failure of the Biden administration’s final year: insisting that economic markers were all improving when people’s rents were soaring as their salaries lagged behind inflation and rising grocery costs — it felt like a massive gaslighting campaign. (The Trump administration is already running out of plausible ways to blame Biden, and will eventually end up in the same situation.)
Basically, if you’re drowning, you will be massively unimpressed when you hear a politician or a pundit say, ‘line go up!’
If you are tired of the doomscrolling and ready for a win, believe me, I am with you. I would love to shout out loud, “we’re number one!” But because I’m a journalist, I have to ask the follow-up questions.
Number one for what?
For whom?
