Monday, February 24, 2014
Best and Worst U.S. States
According to Politico, which "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."
New Hampshire came out as THE BEST, followed by
Minnesota
Vermont
Utah
Massachusetts
as the top five, based on the above-mentioned criteria.
THE WORST state, unhappily, is Mississippi, followed by
Louisiana
Arkansas
Tennessee
Alabama
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25 comments:
Well, that was interesting. I don't think I've seen Minnesota in the top five on one of these lists before (evidently snow was not one of the factors considered), but the others are no surprise.
It always seems to be pretty much the same clutch of states down at the bottom. Incidentally, I've found that the hard-core righties have a ready answer for why deep-South states are always at the bottom -- those states have a lot of blacks and that drags down the state-wide averages. Naturally they don't want to get into the historical reasons for why the quality-of-life indicators for black people in the South are so bad.
Nevertheless, it might be interesting to compare statistics just for white populations in the South. I suspect they'd still come out among the worst in the country, at least in education and health.
Slam the South all you want but most of us wouldn't want to live in the land of the elite's. Of course Mass is bigger than Boston and they have Mitt to thank for a lot of that ranking.
The real test of 'worst' and 'best' is how folks vote with their feet
I understand how Utah keeps showing up in these rankings, but if you as a non-mormon, non-rich and non-white person go there to live ... it is quite not as good as New York, Illinois and so forth.
The algorithym needs tweeking.
skudrunner calls it "slamming the south' when statistics again and again and again show red states do the poorest job of educating their citizens, offering health care, and feeding them. That, in his world, is called "slamming."
In the real world, it's called "doing a rotten job of taking care of the poor, the sick, the disabled, and the young.
Then he tries to give Mitt Romney, who served only one term as Mass. governor credit for what's been happening to the state over the last 6 years under Deval Patrick.
We do thank Romney, however, for Romenycare, upon which Mr. Obama's health insurance initiative, the A.C.A., was based.
Romney, acting as a true Massachusetts Republican LIBERAL does deserve credit for that.
And we did appreciate Gov. Romney's liberal gun policies while governor:
Romney: “We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts — I support them. I won’t chip away at them. I believe they help protect us, and provide for our safety.” — Sept. 24, 2002, at a debate during the Massachusetts gubernatorial race.
Romney signed a permanent assault-weapons ban as governor of the Bay State. “Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts,” Romney said at the July 1, 2004, signing ceremony. “These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.”
A real Republican liberal.
DerFarm, but the state of Utah has made some progress in marriage equality!
Infidel753, another red state that is habitually at the bottom of achievements in social programs and education (and now, sadly, in despoiling its environment) is West Virginia. That state has a small, small percentage of African-Americans.
Skud, you mentioned the good job Romney did in Mass. One of the best things he did was, as Shaw mentioned, approving universal mandatory health care for the state.
I am sure that is one of the reasons why Mass consistently ranks as one of the best places to live in the US.
I have a friend who vehemently opposes the ACA, known as ObamaCare... on constitutional grounds. He does not believe that the feds should be involved in it.
However, he has no problem with states requiring citizens to get health care and essentially forcing people into it.
He is at least able to acknowledge the need, wants to see it, supports the concept and believes it should happen.
Maybe if more southern states had taken the approach of Mass, they'd be higher on this list and lower on the lists of states that take federal aid.
skud, Massachusetts has virtually nothing to thank Mittens for.
Like it or not, the political climate in the U.S. still has one side dominated by "the Southern strategy" which plays to whit southern males' fear that they are losing their privilege.
And yes, we know Mass. is larger than Boston and faces many of the same problems generated by the likes of Mittens.
skudrunner, any idea why two such disparate states as New Hampshire and Vermont rank so high?
Keep an eye on single payer health insurance in Vermont. Once more, New England, tip of the spear.
Dave I think you nailed it. I'm not a supporter of the ACA either on the same philosophical and constitiution grounds. But, if it makes sense, lowers cost, doesn't balloon the national debt further, and improves QOL, why not?
States Rights is still a valid argument. Which if I'm recalling correctly was Romney's position on the stump.
I am in the state of Denial. Living conditions are shitty, schools are terrible, the politics suck, it is difficult to buy a decent pair of shoes,bridges need repair and there hasn't been a delivery of fresh Ho-Hos in months.
...on the other hand....the neighbors are quiet and the property taxes are low. Sure beats that State of Grace I used to live in.
Les... but here's the rub... my friend said he was in favor of states requiring insurance.
That was not Mittens position. he said staes should be free to do whatever they want.
Not one single GOP candidate came out and said philosophically that they favored universal health care, just at a state level.
In fact not one candidate even had any plan to get America covered through any process.
All they did was bad mouth President Obama and call his insurer based program socialism and a "government takeover" of the health care business.
That's one reason the GOP and conservatives have no street cred on this issue.
For me, the issue is going to be uniformity. If we are living in one country, is it unreasonable for me to think that there would be a uniform set of rules and regulations that everyone should play by.
I believe there should be. Others, primarily states rights supporters, believe not.
Maybe you could explain to me why a person living in one part of the same country lives under one set of laws, and a person living in another part lives under a completely different set of laws?
Maybe that approach worked in the early days of our republic when it was hard to travel, mobility was limited and communicating with your cousins in another state was sent by pony express, but today?
Hardly... we are too connected.
Good points, Dave. That's why, eventually, marriage equality has to be federally mandated by law.
A couple that gets married in Massachusetts has their marriage invalidated in Mississippi? Why should that be? It's nuts. But it will change.
Here's a graph showing the smartest and not so smart states.
No surprise with either the info in your post or your graph. The best places to live have an abundance of educated liberals.
Perhaps that is why my smarter sibling of the same gender often commentedtgat perhaps we should be 50 independent states. He is considerably more liberal than I.
Go figure.
Duck,
Boston is a great place to live as long as you are part of the wealthy elite. Ask those living in Roxbury how great Boston is.
Obamacare will be tested and changed over time and is the law. It will not be repealed and will assist those who wouldn't or couldn't pay for healthcare insurance. The subsidies are being paid by the middle class which this administration is doing a great job of shrinking.
Now his pen and phone have proven he can even eliminate entry level jobs. His support of wall street and the rich is at the expense of the middle class and now he is after the poor.
skudrunner, do you know every person who lives in Roxbury, and do you know their financial circumstances? You don't. So zip it.
Boston, like every city on the planet has its poor neighborhood and its wealthy neighborhoods.
Your sour comment is indicative of your discomfort with the fact that Massachusetts is a liberal state that is doing well on social issues, education, and health care.
Boston was included, BTW, in a Forbes magazine piece, as one of the better cities to retire to because of its cultural life, (I attended a complete performance of Beethoven's 9th symphony, and a short piece by Schostokovich two weeks ago, FREE, performed by New England Conservatory students and Tufts University chorus. NEC presents FREE top-quality performances once a week. Just get there early for first come, first serve seats.)
Boston also has world class medical reserch and care facilities, lots of open spaces for recreation and best of all, IMO, a diverse population. I'm involved in tutoring ESL students, and they're from all parts of the planet: Mexico, Central America, South America, North Africa, China, Rwanda, Nigeria, Albania, Romania, just to mention a few.
Your comment is nothing more than sour grapes because a liberal state has consistently delivered good quality of life to its citizens while at the same time being FIRST in marriage equality. (Massachusetts was among the first states in the Northeast to abolish slavery.)
Massachusetts and its capital, Boston, is by no means perfect. No place is. Roxbury is part of Boston that can do better, and is doing better. That's one among other sections of the state that can improve. It's telling that you say nothing about entire red states, not just particular cities, that do miserably in quality of life for their citizens.
boy, dat Skud shure as a way a staying on topic....hes thouts seem to be in a
State of Disrepair.
and speaking of States..how about that Texas...just say a note concerning one of their Senate candidates...
Austin, TX -- Late last week, the San Antonio Express News reported that Chris Mapp, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, used a racial slur to describe undocumented immigrants and then defended the language as "normal."
Mapp stood by his comments, made during an editorial board meeting with the Dallas Morning News, that "'wetbacks' should be shot by ranchers and that President Barack Obama is a 'socialist son of a bitch.'" [San Antonio Express News, 2/21/14]
...he is expected to be endorsed by Sarah Palin and Victoria Jackson in the near future.
Like I said shaw, if you are part of the rich elite, everywhere is a great place to live.
skud, you are very uninformed on this matter. Massachusetts has many, many cities and towns where people of modest means can live.
I live in Boston in an historic neighborhood in a very small but efficient condo. My neighbors are a mixture of old timer Italians, retired folks, working men and women, young marrieds, students, and visiting foreigners.
None of whom are "elite."
Come back when you know what you're talking about. On this particular subject you don't.
okjimm, today's GOP seems to be a magnet for creeps, jerks, bigots, misogynists, Dominionists and numbskulls, with a good measure of richy rich riches--like Mitt "Elevator For My Cars and Tax Deductions for Anne's Horsey" Romney and "We Can Buy Any State We Want To" Kochroach Brothers.
And let's not forget the fairly imbalanced Rupert Murdoch.
@skudrunner --- Duck,
Boston is a great place to live as long as you are part of the wealthy elite. Ask those living in Roxbury how great Boston is.
----
Well, I live in Everett, right on the border of Charlestown near the LNG tanks.
We don't get the after theater crowd but my neighbors are good folk and we help each other out. Still old school.
Yeah, there are some rough areas around Boston like any other large urban area and the ACA isn't relevant to that except that it brings better health care availability.
It does?
Still planning to check in again in 5 to 10 years to see how things are really working out.
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