From Politico Magazine:
Politico Magazine rounded up 14 different state rankings from reputable sources like the Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the FBI, and on important factors such as high school graduation rates, per capita income, life expectancy and crime rate. Then we averaged out each state’s 14 rankings to come up with a master list–atop which sits none other than New Hampshire.
The approach isn’t scientific or comprehensive (hey, neither was Mencken’s), and not all states are created equal–California’s economy is the world’s eighth largest, for instance, and Texas’s population outranks that of most countries. We also hold no grudges against the State of Mississippi, which came in last not just overall but on four of the individual lists, and certainly don’t attribute its woes to “hordes of barbaric peasants,” as Mencken did. But given that eight of the lowest-ranking states on our list overlap with the bottom 10 on his, maybe less has changed in the past 83 years than you’d think.
Full story and listing here.
*** So is it safe to say, “the more things appear to change, the more they stay the same?” ***
Obviously political honesty and efficiency were not criteria.