A.G. Gancarski
To quote Hillary Clinton and The Smiths both: “What difference does it make?”
Whether WalletHub ranks Jacksonville as the No. 1 city to start a business in, as the site did in 2014, a ranking used when Mayor Alvin Brown trumpeted the site in his TV ads for re-election, or the No. 58 city, as is the case now, according to the Jacksonville Business Journal, it’s still pretty clear that the ranking has no real meaning to end users of the data.
Want proof? Despite hearing about the study many times over the past few months, no media outlet doing primary reporting on the story is exactly sure why Jacksonville dropped so far in its rankings.
Back in February, I corresponded with the author of the study, who stated, “WalletHub’s tools and information are trusted by millions of consumers, thousands of reporters and leading banking industry figures, and it is just a shame that partisan commentary about a mayoral race could lead some people to believe otherwise.”
I was skeptical about the importance of the study at that point. I didn’t know its precise criteria. And I still don’t. That said, I was told that the study was “based almost entirely on official government sources, such as the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Respected research organizations – the Kauffman Foundation and the Tax Foundation – as well as legitimate sources of market data – the job site Indeed.com and the real estate site LoopNet – were consulted as well.”
All of that is fine. We still don’t really know what the precise criteria for the study is, though. Or was, given that there may be significant methodological differences between 2014 and 2015. What we do know is that it won’t be a talking point on the campaign trail anymore. In that sense, it’s the end of an era.
