There are 25 companies in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. That’s 5% of the total. The question is, is that a lot? The answer is kinda tricky. I think the best way is to look at the number of Fortune 500 companies vs. the number of people. Pennsylvania has 5% of the Fortune 500 and approximately 3.9% of the US’ population.
As far as Pittsburgh goes, it has five of the Fortune 500 companies (not including Consol and Mylan in Cannonsburg or Dick’s in Coraopolis). The five are; PNC at 123, PPG at 190, US Steel at 211, Heinz at 233 and Wesco at 448. In addition to the 3 companies that are just outsider our reach, there are also several companies with a large presence in the area but headquartered elsewhere (for example BNY-Mellon is 274th and Alcoa is 121st). So what does that mean for us? I don’t have the raw data to do an analysis of the numbers of how that compares to other cities. What I can do is a quick comparison of the population and number of fortune 500 companies for some cities I was interested in benchmarking against. I’m counting Allegheny counties’ 1.2 million people as residents of Pittsburgh. That gives us one fortune 500 company per 240,000 people.
- Charlotte (Mecklenberg county) has 6 Fortune 500 companies and 890,000 people or 1 company per 148,333 people.
- New York City has 8,361,000 people and 43 Fortune 500 companies or 1 company per 194,441 people.
- Cleveland has 3 Fortune 500 companies and 1,283,000 people or 1 company per 427,666 people.
- Cincinnati has 6 Fortune 500 companies and 851,000 people or 1 company per 141,8333 people.
Of the four cities I looked at Pittsburgh appears to be less infused with Fortune 500 companies then most, but certainly not as thin as some cities. What that means is another thing entirely. I think that a good number of Fortune 500 companies is a good thing for the jobs, stability and potential investment dollars they supply. However, I believe that number can get too low for a productive startup community. Overall, I think I’m a fan of our position in the middle, though I’d love to have a Pittsburgh company that’s not 100 years old on the list.
