New Jersey Named Fourth Most Innovative State

According to Bloomberg, New Jersey came in as the fourth most innovative state in the country.

The Garden State was edged out by Massachusetts who came in first, followed by California and Washington in second and third. Connecticut rounded out the top five in fifth place.

“Innovation usually leads to job creation, and high-skilled job creation, mostly,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts, to Bloomberg. “But there are other jobs that come with it, namely, that as the labor force grows, they need haircuts, they need landscapers, all that stuff — so it does tend to have linkages to other parts of the economy.”

The Bloomberg U.S. Innovation Index scored each of the 50 states on a 0 to 100 scale across six equally weighted metrics:

• R&D intensity;
• productivity;
• high-tech density;
• concentration of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) employment;
• science and engineering degree holders;
• and patent activity.

New Jersey scored a total of 80.42, a 10 in R&D intensity, 8 in productivity, 5 in high-tech density, 15 in STEM concentration, 13 in science and engineering degree holders and a 7 in patent activity.

The bottom five states in innovation were Louisiana, Arkansas, South Dakota, West Virginia and Mississippi.

The data also show the limits of measuring healthy innovation. For example, the migration of talent across state lines can be difficult to measure and often captured only on delay, such as through U.S. Census bureau figures.

Read the full report here.