Finance Website Says Effingham Among Top 20 Business-Friendly Communities

Consumer finance site NerdWallet says Effingham is among the Top 20 business development sites in Illinois.

NerdWallet officials say they analyzed 285 places in the state, each with a population of at least 5,000. The site calculated the overall score for every location based on the city's business climate and economic health using data from the US Census Bureau.

Effingham finished 13th in the state. It's worth noting that the Top 10 sites in the survey are in northern Ilinois, but almost all of the top spots are in surburban Chicago, located from 15 to 30 miles from downtown.

Here are the numbers for Effingham: population--12,264...businesses--1,494...average revenue per business--$1,559,763...businesses per 100 people--12.18...unemployment rate--4.3%...percentage of businesses with paid employees--45.38% (differentiating from self-employed businesses).

It's also worth noting that five of the top 10 places on the list have populations under 10,000.