Through good times and bad, the churning of businesses and jobs is a hallmark of any dynamic capitalist economy. This “creative destruction,” where some firms enter the market or expand while others contract or close, is the cause of much debate among policymakers and anxiety throughout the workforce. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Business Employment Dynamics (BDM) data series to determine the 10-year survival rates of establishments born in 2003, this article assesses the states in which these new businesses were most likely to survive. Overall, California had by far the highest survival rate between 2003 and 2013 while Northern Plains states such as the Dakotas also fared quite well. Establishments born in 2003 in the Southeastern U.S. and in smaller New England states comparatively struggled to survive this 10-year period.
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