Our incredible adventure of ranking the states of the United States continues. If you don't remember how the rules work... too bad. I explained them a whole one post ago and you should just scroll to that one. It's not that hard. Unless you were educated, as we've seen, in Mississippi.
We continue with #40...
40. North Dakota
Oh yeah, North Dakota! That's the place with Mount Rushmore, right? Nope! You're thinking of South Dakota. North Dakota has absolutely nothing of interest in it at all. This is an important point. North Dakota isn't completely terrible at education, healthcare or quality of life like a lot of these places I mentioned in the bottom 10. Taking just one of those examples, education, North Dakota is pretty good - #11 at high school graduation (although it drops to #48 for advance degrees). It's also #12 at women's equality. Good for you!!! But even those states with terrible living conditions that I've talked about have something to do in them. The primary attraction in North Dakota appears to be sitting around and waiting to die of boredom. Sorry North Dakota, you're short on "intangibles."
39. Louisiana
The only good thing that Louisiana has going for it is New Orleans. If this was a rank of cities in the US, New Orleans would rank high because it's awesome. Poorly located, but awesome. Are you a Chocolate City hater? Too bad. But most of Louisiana isn't New Orleans. Most of Louisiana is a craphole with the forth lowest life expectancy, forth highest obesity (okay, maybe that part is New Orleans' fault because the food is so delicious), sixth lowest high school education rates, and eighth lowest household incomes. In January 2016, Politico called Louisiana the worst state. Politico is wrong, but they're not that wrong. But by coming above North Dakota this gets to my point about the value of at least having something to do in your state. In almost every single measurable way, Louisiana is much more terrible place to live than North Dakota. But at least Louisiana has jazz, cocktails and gumbo so you can pass the time while you live your miserably short life of obesity, ignorance and poverty. Yay?
38. Missouri
I could go for an obviously lame Missouri/misery joke here, but you've probably heard it before. Mizzou ranks fairly poor with a lot of the negative statistics that I've already mentioned. First of all, it has some really terrible income inequality. Missouri also ranks low on the aforementioned (in part 1) "well-being index," has high crime rates and high pollution, is the worst state for pay for state government workers, and... get this... has more puppy mills than any other state. Yes, puppy mills are one of those "wild card" ranking factors that I was talking about it. I take everything into account. So Missouri has a big arch in St. Louis? Nobody cares. Every single McDonald's already has two of those.
37. Indiana
The seventh worst paygap between women and men. A recently-signed bill promoting discrimination. Blue laws restricting the sale of alcohol on Sundays. The lowest voter turnout in the last national election. The fourth lowest state for exercise and physical fitness. The sixth highest for lung cancer. The last in the country for eating fresh produce. The worst water pollution. And the most meth labs (or at least the most meth labs shut down since there is no way to measure the meth labs that aren't found... although if you look at Peyton Manning's slack jaw you'll likely come to the conclusion that the rest of the undiscovered labs were likely in the basement of Lucas Oil Stadium). These are all negative things that you might be able to say about some fictional dystopian future Mad Max society. But they are also things you can say about real Indiana in present day.
36. New Mexico
New Mexico came in right behind Mississippi as the second worst state to raise a child in. It also was the highest in child poverty in the nation, with 30% of children living in a family with less than $24,000 in annual income. By fourth grade, only 23% of New Mexican children can read. A financial magazine rated New Mexico as the worst-run state in the nation based on 11 factors. Forbes listed it as the fourth worst state for businesses. So you might want to re-think moving to New Mexico based on how cool you thought Breaking Bad was. And I guess like with Nevada some people like sand without all that "water" nonsense that beaches have, right? Do I have anything nice to say about New Mexico? Sure... it's the second most "racially integrated" state in the nation. And this factor will begin coming up a bit too, so let me explain that one for future reference through these rankings. No, I'm not talking about "integration" as in busing kids to schools or Black and White people living as neighbors and singing Kumbaya. This is a more complex set of factors related to equality between races including gaps between income, employment, home ownership, poverty, business ownership, education, voter turnout, etc. And don't think that this racial integration factor is some big "politically charged" stat that was used to denigrate the South. As we go along you'll see that some of the "North-iest" states suck at this.
35. Idaho
Idaho is like North Dakota but at least with potatoes. Potatoes are great, and thus Idaho ranks higher. Alas Idaho is also a haven for White supremacist and Aryan nation groups. Still, on the plus side crime is low, employment is high, and french fries are still delicious even when grown by racists. So feel free to go to Idaho. Just try not to be Black, a Democrat, or a woman who wants equality if you're planning on living here.
34. Kansas
Running the raw numbers with the statistics, Kansas doesn't actually come out all that bad. But the things that are bad about Kansas are REALLY bad, and I'm not just talking about how its a boring flat land of wheatfields. Kansas has ranked near to dead last in personal income growth versus inflation, scores poorly on obesity and integration, and its economy has essentially imploded due to some poorly executed "libertarian" experiments. Of course actual libertarianism refers to governments taking a hands-off approach, which Kansas tried on economic (as opposed to social) issues. For social issues this "hands off" approach has been aggressively hands-on with religion famously being forced into school texts, severe restrictions related to women's health, and an insanely expensive drug-testing program for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) recipients that essentially caught nobody (because - spoiler alert! - families too poor to afford food are generally way too poor to be able to avoid drug habits too). The math says Kansas is a little higher than #34, but this is a state where my "intangibles" knock it down a few.
33. South Carolina
Charleston is nice to visit and has good food, but South Carolina doesn't do too well with most of its other statistics. The indicators I'm using to rank the states only have South Carolina doing above average in two areas: personal senses of well-being and employment. Everywhere else it runs in the lower echelons. What is South Carolina really bad at? Women's equality (where it is #45 out of 50 states) and its crime rates (marginally better at #44). But the wild card factors for South Carolina, unlike Kansas, actually move it up a little: a really cool flag, tasty oysters, shrimp and grits, some pretty parks, nice weather. #33 seems about right. Right?
32. Nebraska
Like Kansas, Nebraska's quality of life statistics don't actually make it seem to be a doomed hellhole. And its not a doomed hellhole. If these rankings were based on the numbers I crunched alone, it would have come in higher. But my rankings also factor in other important issues like "the complete boredom of having nothing to do." What is there to do in Nebraska? I mean I'd love to go through it one day to follow the Oregon Trail. It has a high life expectancy for residents and the second lowest unemployment in the nation. But beyond that I think it's mainly corn and even they're not the best at corn. High life expectancy? Why would you want to live longer if it was just in Nebraska?
31. Michigan
One good thing about Michigan is that it has a fairly good healthcare system. Hopefully that good healthcare also applies to mental health, because Michigan tops the nation in bullying incident rates, with huge numbers of Michigan teens saying they've considered suicide. And we can't mention Michigan without mentioning Flint (holy shit their water is literally made of lead!) and the cesspool that is Detroit. With these two Rustbelt cities alone, it's no wonder that Michigan comes in as having the fourth worst employment rate in the nation. And despite Michigan being somewhat middle-ground with regard to its overall diversity demographics - that diversity is devastatingly segregated, with Michigan being among the worst states for the aforementioned integration statistics.
Well, given the Halloween holiday coming up - the next Ed Ranks Everything will skip the states rankings and I'll have a Halloween-themed post up. But I'll return with number 30 next week.
We continue with #40...
40. North Dakota
Oh yeah, North Dakota! That's the place with Mount Rushmore, right? Nope! You're thinking of South Dakota. North Dakota has absolutely nothing of interest in it at all. This is an important point. North Dakota isn't completely terrible at education, healthcare or quality of life like a lot of these places I mentioned in the bottom 10. Taking just one of those examples, education, North Dakota is pretty good - #11 at high school graduation (although it drops to #48 for advance degrees). It's also #12 at women's equality. Good for you!!! But even those states with terrible living conditions that I've talked about have something to do in them. The primary attraction in North Dakota appears to be sitting around and waiting to die of boredom. Sorry North Dakota, you're short on "intangibles."
39. Louisiana
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| Sure, this looks like a suitable place to build a major American city! |
38. Missouri
I could go for an obviously lame Missouri/misery joke here, but you've probably heard it before. Mizzou ranks fairly poor with a lot of the negative statistics that I've already mentioned. First of all, it has some really terrible income inequality. Missouri also ranks low on the aforementioned (in part 1) "well-being index," has high crime rates and high pollution, is the worst state for pay for state government workers, and... get this... has more puppy mills than any other state. Yes, puppy mills are one of those "wild card" ranking factors that I was talking about it. I take everything into account. So Missouri has a big arch in St. Louis? Nobody cares. Every single McDonald's already has two of those.
37. Indiana
The seventh worst paygap between women and men. A recently-signed bill promoting discrimination. Blue laws restricting the sale of alcohol on Sundays. The lowest voter turnout in the last national election. The fourth lowest state for exercise and physical fitness. The sixth highest for lung cancer. The last in the country for eating fresh produce. The worst water pollution. And the most meth labs (or at least the most meth labs shut down since there is no way to measure the meth labs that aren't found... although if you look at Peyton Manning's slack jaw you'll likely come to the conclusion that the rest of the undiscovered labs were likely in the basement of Lucas Oil Stadium). These are all negative things that you might be able to say about some fictional dystopian future Mad Max society. But they are also things you can say about real Indiana in present day.
36. New Mexico
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| New Mexico's most famous resident. |
35. Idaho
Idaho is like North Dakota but at least with potatoes. Potatoes are great, and thus Idaho ranks higher. Alas Idaho is also a haven for White supremacist and Aryan nation groups. Still, on the plus side crime is low, employment is high, and french fries are still delicious even when grown by racists. So feel free to go to Idaho. Just try not to be Black, a Democrat, or a woman who wants equality if you're planning on living here.
34. Kansas
Running the raw numbers with the statistics, Kansas doesn't actually come out all that bad. But the things that are bad about Kansas are REALLY bad, and I'm not just talking about how its a boring flat land of wheatfields. Kansas has ranked near to dead last in personal income growth versus inflation, scores poorly on obesity and integration, and its economy has essentially imploded due to some poorly executed "libertarian" experiments. Of course actual libertarianism refers to governments taking a hands-off approach, which Kansas tried on economic (as opposed to social) issues. For social issues this "hands off" approach has been aggressively hands-on with religion famously being forced into school texts, severe restrictions related to women's health, and an insanely expensive drug-testing program for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) recipients that essentially caught nobody (because - spoiler alert! - families too poor to afford food are generally way too poor to be able to avoid drug habits too). The math says Kansas is a little higher than #34, but this is a state where my "intangibles" knock it down a few.
33. South Carolina
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| South Carolina. Famous for this tree. I guess. |
32. Nebraska
Like Kansas, Nebraska's quality of life statistics don't actually make it seem to be a doomed hellhole. And its not a doomed hellhole. If these rankings were based on the numbers I crunched alone, it would have come in higher. But my rankings also factor in other important issues like "the complete boredom of having nothing to do." What is there to do in Nebraska? I mean I'd love to go through it one day to follow the Oregon Trail. It has a high life expectancy for residents and the second lowest unemployment in the nation. But beyond that I think it's mainly corn and even they're not the best at corn. High life expectancy? Why would you want to live longer if it was just in Nebraska?
31. Michigan
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| Either the London Fire of 1666 or Detroit on any given Tuesday. Who can tell? |
Well, given the Halloween holiday coming up - the next Ed Ranks Everything will skip the states rankings and I'll have a Halloween-themed post up. But I'll return with number 30 next week.
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