Key finding: North Dakota ranked first among the 50 states. 12.0% of its business applications listed a date to start paying wages.
Wyoming ranked last at 3.5%.
That is a big gap.
In North Dakota, about 12 out of every 100 applications listed a date to start paying wages.
In Wyoming, about 3.5 out of every 100 did.
North Dakota’s share was 3.4 times Wyoming’s.
This does not mean those firms hired workers. It only shows what they put on their applications.
RecurSave used data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Business Applications With Planned Wages by State
| Rank | State | Business applications | With planned wages | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Dakota | 9,691 | 1,163 | 12.0% |
| 2 | Maine | 15,057 | 1,680 | 11.2% |
| 3 | Rhode Island | 12,592 | 1,248 | 9.9% |
| 4 | South Dakota | 13,221 | 1,305 | 9.9% |
| 5 | Alaska | 12,703 | 1,222 | 9.6% |
| 6 | Washington | 117,106 | 11,189 | 9.6% |
| 7 | West Virginia | 18,327 | 1,744 | 9.5% |
| 8 | Nebraska | 24,261 | 2,306 | 9.5% |
| 9 | Oregon | 63,499 | 6,035 | 9.5% |
| 10 | Massachusetts | 84,897 | 7,977 | 9.4% |
| 11 | Idaho | 36,436 | 3,368 | 9.2% |
| 12 | Oklahoma | 69,235 | 6,286 | 9.1% |
| 13 | California | 603,909 | 54,229 | 9.0% |
| 14 | Vermont | 8,303 | 745 | 9.0% |
| 15 | Kansas | 42,807 | 3,781 | 8.8% |
| 16 | New Hampshire | 19,691 | 1,699 | 8.6% |
| 17 | Iowa | 37,729 | 3,215 | 8.5% |
| 18 | Minnesota | 76,661 | 6,242 | 8.1% |
| 19 | Indiana | 98,265 | 7,791 | 7.9% |
| 20 | Texas | 587,453 | 46,516 | 7.9% |
| 21 | Tennessee | 114,989 | 9,105 | 7.9% |
| 22 | Hawaii | 18,591 | 1,448 | 7.8% |
| 23 | Wisconsin | 79,523 | 6,171 | 7.8% |
| 24 | Arkansas | 45,187 | 3,476 | 7.7% |
| 25 | Missouri | 115,274 | 8,803 | 7.6% |
| 26 | Nevada | 69,034 | 5,235 | 7.6% |
| 27 | Pennsylvania | 167,561 | 12,497 | 7.5% |
| 28 | Virginia | 149,096 | 11,063 | 7.4% |
| 29 | North Carolina | 198,245 | 14,654 | 7.4% |
| 30 | Alabama | 77,265 | 5,670 | 7.3% |
| 31 | Maryland | 108,517 | 7,881 | 7.3% |
| 32 | Illinois | 198,362 | 14,385 | 7.3% |
| 33 | Connecticut | 54,517 | 3,808 | 7.0% |
| 34 | Utah | 83,442 | 5,827 | 7.0% |
| 35 | New Jersey | 173,163 | 11,823 | 6.8% |
| 36 | Delaware | 61,046 | 4,007 | 6.6% |
| 37 | Michigan | 167,308 | 10,948 | 6.5% |
| 38 | South Carolina | 102,396 | 6,664 | 6.5% |
| 39 | New York | 320,898 | 20,446 | 6.4% |
| 40 | Montana | 32,253 | 2,048 | 6.3% |
| 41 | Mississippi | 61,494 | 3,892 | 6.3% |
| 42 | Arizona | 154,366 | 9,661 | 6.3% |
| 43 | Georgia | 277,705 | 17,288 | 6.2% |
| 44 | Ohio | 183,897 | 11,312 | 6.2% |
| 45 | New Mexico | 43,699 | 2,621 | 6.0% |
| 46 | Colorado | 163,722 | 9,728 | 5.9% |
| 47 | Louisiana | 81,556 | 4,705 | 5.8% |
| 48 | Kentucky | 76,291 | 4,323 | 5.7% |
| 49 | Florida | 709,158 | 35,662 | 5.0% |
| 50 | Wyoming | 85,212 | 2,971 | 3.5% |
Across the U.S., the share was 7.1%.
There were 6,141,390 business applications.
Of those, 439,079 listed a date to start paying wages.
Washington, D.C. had a share of 7.7%. It is not part of the 50-state ranking.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau. Calculations by RecurSave.
What the Data Show
North Dakota ranked first.
Its share was 12.0%.
Wyoming ranked last.
Its share was 3.5%.
The gap was 8.5 percentage points.
North Dakota’s share was 3.4 times as large.
These numbers do not show how many people got jobs.
They also do not show how many firms later had workers.
They only show what was listed on the business applications.
Method
RecurSave used Census data.
The data run from August 2025 to July 2026.
For each state, we added up two sets of monthly numbers:
- all Business Applications; and
- Business Applications with Planned Wages.
We used the same type of Census data for both sets.
The formula was:
Applications with planned wages ÷ all business applications × 100
Census calls an application a “Business Application with Planned Wages” when it lists a first wages-paid date.
That date comes from IRS Form SS-4.
Census says this can be a sign that the firm may later have payroll.
Limits
This is not a measure of actual hiring.
A planned wage date does not mean a firm hired anyone.
Business Applications are also not a count of all new firms.
There was one known data issue.
An IRS online system went down near the end of December 2025. Census said this affected that month’s data.
RecurSave ran the ranking again without December.
North Dakota was still first.
Wyoming was still last.
This study does not tell us why the states differ.
Why This Is Useful
Big states often get more business applications.
So raw totals can be hard to compare.
A share gives each state the same test:
Out of every 100 applications, how many listed a date to start paying wages?
This makes it easier to compare large and small states.