One would think that having #46 Vermont and #7 New Hampshire side-by-side would have drained all the business out of Vermont long ago - unless even so large differences in relative standing are in absolute terms marginal.
Maybe it pretty much did happen -- maybe 30 years ago they were #25 and #26.
I think Vermont has fewer than 700k people. Their biggest city, Burlington, probably has around 100k people. Not too much business there to begin with.