Wisconsin is the top state for construction, according to the 10th annual Merit Shop Scorecard from the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC). Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Florida rounded out the top five states in 2024.
ABC’s scorecard, released annually since 2015, ranks all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on their policies and programs related to workforce development and construction projects.
“Policies and processes that protect free enterprise, promote economic growth, reduce regulatory burdens, and expand workforce development create the conditions to welcome all of the U.S. construction industry to rebuild America’s infrastructure,” said Ben Brubeck, ABC’s Vice President of Regulatory, Labor, and State Affairs. “States like Wisconsin, Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Florida set the standard in favorable conditions for the construction industry, and its workforce, to thrive. Hard-working taxpayers are best served by a regulatory environment that creates a level playing field for all contractors to build America with fewer obstacles.”
Wisconsin has been a high-performing state in the rankings year after year, but ABC said they took the top spot with the highest scores on:
- Fair and open competition policies prohibiting government-mandated project labor agreements (PLAs), ensuring market-driven wages on public works jobs and protecting workers with its right-to-work law
- Sustained job growth in construction, with a five-year job growth rate of 4.4 percent
- Continued commitment to quality career and technical education (CTE), delivering a 97.4 percent graduation rate for students in career technical education programs and a 91.4 percent rate of postsecondary CTE students placed in careers and/or apprenticeship programs
- A workforce development pipeline that delivers a construction labor supply over 100 percent of demand amidst a severe nationwide construction labor shortage
Arkansas came in second, one step up from 2023 when it ranked third. The state boasts a 6.1 percent growth rate in construction industry jobs and delivers outstanding results in CTE, ABC said. The organization also praised the fair and open public construction market in Arkansas.
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Florida, Arizona, and Indiana remain high-performing states in the rankings. All three maintain exceptional CTE and workforce development programs, delivering a robust and highly skilled workforce, ABC said.
Florida, a former first-place state, continued to perform well in ABC’s rankings. With one of the largest economies in the country and extensive labor needs, the state has maintained a focus on innovative, career-centered education opportunities, which continues to yield positive results for craft professionals and the construction workforce as the state experiences record population growth, ABC said.
Arizona returned to the top 10 in the 2024 rankings due to a 5.8 percent job growth rate in construction and a 90 percent labor supply versus demand, along with the state’s continued maintenance of a prohibition on government-mandated PLAs.
Michigan dropped in ABC’s 2024 rankings, falling to number 33 due to the full repeal of right-to-work legislation and other actions ABC called part of “an adversarial two years for the merit shop.”
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The bottom five states, in ranking order, were Washington, the District of Columbia, Illinois, New York, and Hawaii. Low-performing states in the rankings “maintain policies unfriendly to open shop contractors and taxpayers, such as encouraging or requiring the use of government-mandated PLAs on state and/or local projects,” ABC said.
The 2024 Merit Shop Scorecard rates state laws, programs, policies, and statistics in seven categories: project labor agreements, prevailing wage laws, right-to-work laws, public-private partnerships, workforce development, CTE, and job growth rate.
To view ABC’s complete rankings, visit meritshopscorecard.org.
